


Lonely Bones, Lonely Heart

by stellardarlings



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Historical, Arranged Marriage, Cause I'm a motherf~~~ing monster, F/M, Foundling!rey, Happy Ending, How Do I Tag, Mild Blood, Monster Kylo Ren, No Pregnancy, Outdoor Sex, Rough Sex, Tiny touch of magic realism, Twitter: reylo_prompts, Victorian Gothic AU, virgin!ben, virgin!rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:06:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28272831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellardarlings/pseuds/stellardarlings
Summary: Rey is a foundling with no prospects and an affinity for unusual creatures. When she hears the Solos are seeking a wife for their reclusive son, she agrees to marry him on the basis she'll have a real home for the first time in her life, and access to their extensive fortune. Yet when Rey travels to their rural estate, Ben Solo is not what she expects - and their house contains darker secrets still.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 194
Kudos: 482





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Did I need another story idea? No. Did I get one? Yes. Blame for this comes from @reylo_prompts on Twitter and the people who retweeted this one into my feed (original tweet [here](https://twitter.com/reylo_prompts/status/1275778273033760770)). 
> 
> Also blame/thanks goes to my beta Reylonging who saw me retweet this and then DM'd me about it knowing I couldn't resist.
> 
> Anyway. Here's some Gothic AU Rey and her monster husband. I accept no responsibility for any tropes found within.

“Excuse me, sir. Are you able to give me directions to the Organa estate?”

Rey Kirk tugs her heavy woollen cloak tighter around herself to protect herself from the falling snowflakes. It’s poor luck that today of all days the sky should cloud over so thoroughly, the deep grey of wet slate, and let loose so much snow on the world. She’s never had to deal with it much. And yet, here it’s already drifted up to ankle height and is still coming down in gusts, threatening to engulf her boots before she reaches her destination.

The gentleman she’s just addressed at least pauses in mid-stride for wherever it is he’s hurrying to. A warm home with a roaring hearth, no doubt. He squints at her from under bushy eyebrows, and when he responds his silver whiskers twitch, dislodging the tiny spots of white that have settled in them. 

“The Organa estate?” he echoes. “Ah, you mean the Solo residence.” Despite him looking every inch the city gentleman, in his black topper and thick coat, he doesn’t speak like the city men she’s heard before. There’s a burr to the way he pronounces his rs, an elongation to the syllables that makes it clear to Rey that she’s a very long way from Niima now. This little village nestled in the hills is far from the smoke and bustle, and the strangeness of his speech only serves to remind her of that.

“The very same, sir, if you please.”

“The Solos don’t take visitors,” he comments with a frown. His gaze sweeps down Rey, in her simple, well-mended dress and flimsy bonnet. She must look strange to him, in all her drab brown, without a trunk or luggage of any kind to suggest she’s travelled as far as she has. But it’s not as though she had much of anything to bring with her, and the Solos had promised to provide all she wanted.

“They’ve sent for me,” she says, pasting on a cheery smile in the hopes it will convince him. When the suspicion doesn’t leave his eyes, she fishes in her pocket for one of the only possessions she has—the letter from the Solo family, the one topped with their letterhead. It’s well-worn, from all the times she’d taken it out on the journey and reread it, the seams where it’s been folded and unfolded starting to tear a little at the edges of the paper. 

Every time her courage had dimmed on the carriage ride from London, she’d returned to this letter and all the Solos were offering her. Yet already she’s growing wary, having been ditched in the village square by the very carriage sent to bring her to her new home. The driver had insisted he could go no further in this snow, not if he were to make it back to a safe inn before dark, and she’d been tossed out into the empty street with her protests falling on deaf ears. The carriage had disappeared around the corner only a minute or so ago, wheels bouncing on the cobbles and horse hooves muffled.

Around that same corner comes another figure now, huddled up in a coat and muff, pink-cheeked and head-bowed. The woman almost collides with them before halting abruptly when she reaches them.

“Goodness me, what a day!” she says in greeting. She nods politely at the gentleman and then turns a curious gaze towards Rey. “I couldn’t help noticing the carriage—was that yours?”

“It was, madam.” Rey’s known many a gossip in her time, and the set of this woman’s eyes suggests she drinks tattle up like tea. She doesn’t appear in any rush to get to wherever she’s going.

“That’s a brave business, coming on the woodland road this time of year.”

Rey remembers the close, dark press of the trees around the carriage, and the driver’s polished revolver. “I didn’t think we were far enough north for griffins.”

“Not griffins, no, my dear,” the woman says. “But wolves and redcaps can get very hungry in the winter.”

“She’s been summoned to the Solo house, Mrs Tate,” the gentleman tells her, gently turning the topic of conversation from such a grim one. “She has a letter from them right here.”

“The Solos?” Oh, now the eager Mrs Tate is intrigued, her face barely masking the flicker of delight which runs through her. “Strange folk, the Solos. They don’t come into the village much and we rarely see them. I can’t say I’ve ever seen the younger Solo outside the house.”

One persistent snowflake has found the gap between Rey’s cloak and her skin, and begins to make its slow, icy glide down her neck and between her shoulderblades. “Perhaps he’s unwell?”

It doesn’t sit right with her, to stand here and listen to this prattle about the people who have agreed to open their home to her. Not when she’s met a thousand Mrs Tates and never known any of them to be intentionally kind.

“Perhaps,” comes the tart reply. “But I’ve heard some very queer tellings from the staff they’ve taken on, over the years.”

“If I could just have directions—“ Rey tries, wishing for the conversation to be over. She knows without a shadow of a doubt that she will be up to her stockings in snowdrifts before she ever reaches her destination at this rate, and that’s without the burden of a trunk to carry the rest of the way. 

“Are you to be the new maid, then?” Mrs Tate cuts in. “I’d turn back, if I were you. Nobody lasts long in that house.”

“No,” Rey answers, tucking her letter away before it becomes damp, and she finds her hands are shaking when she continues. “No, I’m to be the younger Mr Solo’s wife.”

* * *

Tendrils of fog curl around the chimney stacks of the Organa house as Rey finally makes her way up the driveway. The snow had stopped falling as she’d trudged her way outside the village. The wind still howls through the trees, and Rey’s spine whispers to her about Mrs Tate’s warnings about wolves. Surely they wouldn’t come so close, no matter how hungry? But the house is a good half a mile outside the village proper, on a road where Rey sees no other person or carriage, and though her footsteps make satisfying crunching sounds in the snow, she is sure any creature wishing her harm could easily move more silently than she can.

The gate has been blocked fast by drifts either side, though luckily Rey is used to climbing and finding her way into places shut fast against her. She’d hoped the invitation to join the Solos meant she’d put such unladylike pastimes behind her, but she also has no intention of freezing to death outside. Nobody from the house would have seen her waiting. It’s set back from the road by quite a bit and sheltered further by thick leylandii. When she emerges from beneath their skirts, she is at least pleased to see that there is smoke billowing from the chimneys, trying to combat the worst of the chill.

It’s a handsome house, not especially old, neatly symmetrical and with large windows which suggest it was built in the reign of one of the Georges. The windows are covered, the curtains drawn inside against the encroaching dusk, but she supposes that helps keep the warmth inside. It’s strange to think that somewhere so large, so sturdy, might belong to her soon enough. 

The entrance door is wider than she can stretch her arms out, and was clearly once a glossy rich green before the paint faded and peeled. The knocker is a beast’s head, undistinguishable beneath the snow which has settled on it, and she raps it against the wood with a trembling hand. That the door is so shabby gives her pause—if the Solos have the riches they have claimed, there is no reason for it to be in such a state. That’s before she even notices the claw marks in the frame. They are at her eyeline, else she might not have spotted them, and she’s already taken half a step back from the door before it’s flung open.

All her fears are allayed at the cloud of warmth which emanates from the open door and swoops her into its embrace.

“You must be Miss Kirk.” 

The man behind the door is tall, with a shock of silver hair which is not as tame as is respectable. He’s in a tweed waistcoat which has seen better days, and he’s clean-shaven too, completely out of fashion, but the gleam in his eye suggests he cares not a bit. If this is the Solo’s manservant, their standards are less fastidious than she expected.

“I am, sir.” She remembers her manners enough to drop into a curtsey, and he blinks at her in confusion, as if she’s just performed a magic trick or responded to him in tongues.

“Come inside, kid, you must be freezing.”

She nods, eagerly stepping across the threshold and letting him close the door behind her, finding that her tremors have spread from her hand to her entire body.

“Wait, where’s the carriage?” The man asks, peering beyond her at the empty driveway. Though he’s old enough to be her grandfather, Rey can see in the lines of his face the remnants of youthful good looks, and a certain easy charm.

“The driver declined to bring me this far, sir.” 

The man frowns in response. “Then what exactly were we paying him for?”

Rey doesn’t respond; she finds herself too in awe of her surroundings. The proportions of this entrance hallway are grander than she’d even imagined from the outside, and rather than candles, the space is lit with gas lamps, an indulgence even in the city. The floor she’s dripping melted snow onto is parquet and the walls are both panelled in wood, up to waist height, and papered in delicate, faded patterns. This is far above her station, and the mystery of why she’d been summoned at all deepens.

“Han, is that her?” she hears a woman call from a room deeper into the house. 

“Sure is,” he replies.

Rey startles. She’s read the names on the letterhead—Han Solo, Leia Organa-Solo. Surely the man beside her isn’t Mr Solo?

She’s still gaping as he takes her cloak, hanging it on a hook to dry and ushering her down the hallway. She’s bustled through a doorway into what must be the living room.

It’s so warm that her former chill is leaving her in rushes of prickles across her skin, and she can do little more than stare at the space around her. It’s generously proportioned—a high ceiling, large windows covered by velvet drapes, and an enormous fireplace dominating one wall. The hearth crackles invitingly, and overstuffed sofas are arranged around it to best benefit from the heat. On one of those sofas, a regal woman of perhaps sixty years waits with inviting but anxious eyes.

“Miss Kirk! Do come in.” Her voice is raspy, yet warm, and Rey inches her way toward the sofa, aware her boots are treading all sorts into the carpet. “I’m Leia.”

She extends a hand to Rey, as if she expects Rey to take it. But it seems too familiar to Rey, for her to be greeted like a long-lost friend in such a way. Instead she stares at Mrs Solo, whose hair has been arranged in a neat twist on her head, faintly resembling a tiara. Tasteful jewels adorn her ears, throat, and fingers. This is a house of genteel wealth, Rey realises—not elaborate riches, but old money which has passed down through many generations until it might as well flow through their blood.

And with that, she can hear her own blood pounding in her ears. She has no place here at all.

“Good afternoon, Mrs Solo,” she says, and attempts another curtsey. Just like Plutt made her practice. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Mrs Solo shares a glance with her husband, though what it means, Rey is unable to decipher. “Han, fetch Miss Kirk some tea. She needs properly thawing out if she’s walked here from the village.”

“You have no servant?” Rey asks, and then wishes the ground would swallow her up. But Mrs Solo doesn’t appear angry at the impertinent question—merely tired. She shakes her head.

“Not this late,” she replies. “Staff don’t like coming to and from the village this close to dark. And in the evenings we prefer to keep to ourselves.” Then she pats the empty seat beside her. “Come, sit and warm yourself. Han will bring you hot crumpets to go with your tea.”

“Oh, will he?” Mr Solo mutters, but he departs anyway, and Rey can only presume he has left to the kitchens.

He speaks with a broad American accent. Rey’s not familiar enough with people from across the ocean to place him with more certainty than that. Mrs Solo is a different matter—sometimes her consonants are crisp enough to be English, other times she softens them to something closer to her husband. Someone who’s spent a lot of time in both places, then, perhaps.

Rey gingerly sits down beside Mrs Solo, trying to arrange her skirts to appear as respectable as possible. “You’ve been very kind, Mrs Solo.”

“Not at all. It’s the least we can do since you’ve agreed to become part of our family.” The enormous dark ruby on Mrs Solo’s finger glitters in the firelight.

“I—I think there’s been a mistake,” Rey blurts. 

Mrs Solo frowns, and there’s a sudden stillness to her, her dark eyes tight with concern. “How so?”

“This is all above my station. I can’t be a match for your son—I don’t have the breeding or the family to justify all of this!”

This time, Mrs Solo takes Rey’s hand. “Miss Kirk, we’ve searched high and low for a match for Ben. Truly, it’s taken us years to get to this point. Nothing delights me more than you finally being with us.”

“But there are hundreds of women in London who are of the appropriate station and would be thrilled at such a lovely home.”

“Perhaps. But none of them want to wed my son, and that’s the important thing here. Besides, Mr Plutt has well-established the credentials we believe will make you a more than suitable match.”

“Mrs Solo, I have no credentials. I can’t dance, or play, or embroider. I know no language other than English. I can barely read.” Her cheeks burn to confess as much.

“You can cook. You can mend. And I’ve been told you have an affinity with creatures. All skills that will serve you well here.”

Rey finds herself at a loss. It’s true that she’s spent a fair amount of time apprenticed to the local bestiary, capturing and taming the creatures which tried to make the city streets their home. But she fails to see how knowing how to command a hoodwink just right to get it to follow you, or what best to feed a bugbear so it doesn’t tear a dwelling apart, will do here. 

Mr Solo returns with a tray laden with steaming items, and Rey is glad to hide her face behind a hot crumpet, dripping with butter and honey. It’s the richest thing she’s eaten in a long time, and her fingers twitch with the urge to take more of them, to hide them in her skirts. Something tells her this will be a house of plenty, even if her instincts are still attuned to hoarding food.

The tea is piping hot and slightly peppery, and the combined warmth and fullness helps to untangle the knot of anxiety Rey has been carrying with her since London. Her hands stop shaking as she warms them around the china, and she even adds a sugarcube to the cup, amazed that there is an entire dish of them on the tray. She’s never seen so much sugar in one place in her life.

Mr Solo has perched himself on the arm of another sofa. “Where do your family hail from, Miss Kirk? Leia never did tell me.”

That earns him a glare from Mrs Solo, and Rey realises that most, if not all, of her correspondence has been with the latter. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Rey replies. “I was a foundling, left in a churchyard.” And they’d named her Kirk for it, then Rey after the grave she’d been left on.

Mr Solo quails under his misstep, but Rey tries to offer him a kind smile to reassure him. 

“We hope, in time, you come to view this estate as your home,” Mrs Solo says, trying to smooth the mistake over. “We know this isn’t the grandest of houses—“

“Oh, no—this is lovely!” Rey protests. She thinks of her garret, right at the top of Unkar Plutt’s sprawling boarding house, with its narrow, lumpy cot and grimy window. It hadn’t even had a fireplace of its own, instead relying on the warmth carried up the chimney breasts from the fires below to keep the room a tolerable temperature. And at night Rey had been able to hear mice scurrying through the walls.

Even without seeing the rest of the house, she knows that won’t be a problem here. And despite the tiny details that have caused her some discomfort so far—the ominous words from Mrs Tate, the claw marks and hints of wolves, she likes the place. She’d worried that it would be too ostentatious for her, or there’d been a trick in getting her here, but now she allows herself to believe that she might have found somewhere she can call a home. For the first time in her life. Whatever else the bargain involves, to have a place like this and never have to leave it will be worth it.

Mrs Solo smiles, and Rey is startled to discover that she likes her, despite how little time they’ve spent together. “Well then. We’ve had a bedroom prepared for you, and since you said you had nothing to bring with you, I’ve arranged for some clothes to be laid out as well. Nothing new or especially fashionable, I’m afraid, but now you’re here we can arrange for a dressmaker to visit and make something to suit you.”

“Honestly, there’s no need.”

“I promised you that we’d take care of you. Let us do that.”

Rey nods. “And—Mr Solo?” She flushes. “The younger Mr Solo, I mean. When shall I meet him?” Of him so far, there has been no trace.

Mr and Mrs Solo exchange another glance, and once again Rey is hard pressed to decipher it.

“It’s bad luck for a groom to see his bride on the eve of the wedding,” Mrs Solo tells Rey. “So we thought it best for him to stay out of sight until the ceremony. The priest will be here in the morning, and you’ll meet Ben then.”

“T-tomorrow? So soon?”

Mrs Solo is still smiling, but her eyes are tight once more. “When you confirmed you expected to arrive today, we made arrangements. The banns have been read, the licence procured—everything is in place.”

“But what if Mr Solo doesn’t like me?” 

She doesn’t voice the counterpart question out loud—what if she doesn’t like him? She’s already begun to suspect there is something about the man which makes him an unsuitable bridegroom for women of his own station. He must be especially ugly—although it would be unusual with such handsome parents—or infirm. Truthfully, she’d suspected that before she set out from Niima, calculating the burden of a husband in such a condition against the merits of all she’d gain upon their marriage, before deciding she would be a fool to turn the opportunity down. Yet she’d at least like the opportunity to understand the situation in full before committing herself to the man.

“He’s read all of your letters,” Leia tells her, “and I think he likes you very much. He’s shy, but I’m sure you two will get along fine.”

The tea and crumpets are swept away, and Mrs Solo guides Rey through the rest of the house, up to the second floor where her new bedroom is. The room is easily ten times as large as Rey’s old garret, with a canopy bed in the centre of it. She resists the urge to take a run at the bed, since it wouldn’t be at all dignified enough for her new station, but a delighted shiver goes through her at the thought of being able to sleep on a feather mattress.

The room must be at the corner of the house, because there are windows in two of the walls, and when Rey is alone she pushes one of the curtains aside to stare out at the gardens. 

The snow has blanketed it all, casting an eerie light to the world. The house is largely enclosed by trees anyway, except for a sloping lawn, and Rey can just about see the dark line of the lane she walked up today. It’s a beautiful scene, but not at all welcoming, and she lets the curtain fall back into place. This part of the world is so quiet, unlike the constant rattle and hum of the crowded streets in Niima—a noise Rey never noticed until she left it behind.

It’s so quiet that, when she settles into the bed, underneath sheets which do not scratch at her skin, but glide over it instead, the silence presses on her ears like a weight. It’s why, when she hears a series of creaks, like footsteps across floorboards, she assumes it’s her imagination supplying noise to help her feel less out of place. She doesn’t let it distract her from sleep at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The snow-induced hush lingers in the morning. It leaves Rey disoriented when she first rouses, the silence unnatural and unnerving when she’s so used to waking among the hustle of Niima. It takes a few moments for the confusion to pass, the soft mattress and sweet linens a stark contrast to her usual circumstances, and she smiles to herself when she remembers where she is. Her new home—the Organa estate, where she’ll begin her new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I hope you all had a nice winter break, if you got one, unless you're reading this in summer and are very confused. The plan is to update this story weekly on Wednesdays, and it should be wrapped up by the end of January. I intend to stick to the five chapters but ya girl is a wordy bitch so we could well go longer.
> 
> A couple of quick notes: Rey's pre-marriage last name "Kirk" comes from the old Norse word for church and is used throughout northern England and Scotland - it comes up a lot in place names and, of course, as a last name. So in lieu of a family name, Rey was named after the place she was found as a baby.
> 
> Also, although this story is meant to be set in Victorian England, it's definitely an AU where magical beasts and beings are not unknown to the general population. As such, the religion described is not-quite-Christianity, even though it may have many of the trappings of the Church of England. Any details that don't ring quite right for the time period are due to it being an alternate history rather than an error/lack of research on the part of the author. Honest.

The snow-induced hush lingers in the morning. It leaves Rey disoriented when she first rouses, the silence unnatural and unnerving when she’s so used to waking among the hustle of Niima. It takes a few moments for the confusion to pass, the soft mattress and sweet linens a stark contrast to her usual circumstances, and she smiles to herself when she remembers where she is. Her new home—the Organa estate, where she’ll begin her new life.

The lack of a cockerel crowing in a nearby yard means she rises far later than she normally would, and she’s unable to judge the hour from the light creeping through the canopy around her bed. The room is chilled when she untangles herself from the many blankets, the embers of last night’s fire long since faded to cold ash. Yet Rey can only think of how draughty and awful her little garret must feel this morning, to whoever has inhabited it now that it’s empty. 

Draped over a nearby chair is a dress, freshly pressed, and on the seat is a pile of undergarments. These must be the garments Mrs Solo had arranged for her to wear, and Rey lifts the dress delicately to take a proper look at it. Even though Mrs Solo had said she had nothing new or fashionable to offer, Rey finds herself beaming in delight at the finery she’s holding, all silk and lace and satin ribbon. It’s not as if Rey knows what the ladies of the ton consider en vogue right now, and this is the newest thing Rey has ever worn. It’s also a lovely, creamy off-white, so Rey knows the dress can’t be a cast-off from Mrs Solo, who must have been married before the Queen’s own nuptials which started the trend for brides in white.

Rey takes advantage of the washstand to scrub the remaining dirt from her skin, until she is sure she’ll be clean and presentable. Then she laces herself into her stays, and wriggles herself into the rest of the clothing. She even manages to fashion her hair into a respectable set of braids around her crown. The stays are slightly uncomfortable because they’ve been worn by somebody else, and they will take some time to be broken for her body shape. But this is normal to Rey, who has never had new garments of her own. And it is nothing to the unbridled delight she feels upon looking at herself in the mirror when she’s finished—she barely recognises herself. Even the flush of pink on her cheeks seems new.

Today, she’s to become a bride. She hopes she will please him, when he sees her.

Although, the household still seems so inert and quiet, and when she glances out at the lawn and driveway, she finds the snow unbroken by any footsteps. Perhaps the priest cannot make it to the house? And then she realises how strange that idea is—surely they should be going to the church, assuming the village has one? It must do, if the village is to maintain its boundaries and keep uncanny creatures in the woods where they belong. Maybe Rey has always misunderstood how weddings happen; it’s not as if she’s ever attended one.

She opens the door out into the hallway and peers out, not sure what she’ll find on the other side. The house seems quiet but warmth rises from below, so she assumes fireplaces have been lit. With nothing better to do, she grabs a shawl and wraps it tightly around herself, then sets out downstairs.

Only when she closes the door behind herself does she notice a set of claw marks in the wood. They’re at knee height, and she pauses for a moment. Maybe the Solos have a dog? Or used to, since she’s seen no sign of one yet. Though the marks look remarkably fresh.

As she descends the stairs she has more time to take in the layout of the house. This staircase rises from a central hallway—the one which leads to the main door—and a series of doors open from the hall on either side. Rey follows her instincts and retreats to the rear of the house, where she expects to find the kitchens, or a pantry, or anywhere that food might be kept.

She’s lucky— the first door she opens leads into the kitchens, where a roaring fire fills an enormous stone hearth. It’s so large that Rey could easily step into the hearth without stooping much. But opening the door sends a breeze through the room, alerting its only occupant to her presence.

The drowsing maid snaps up from where she’s propped against the table and rushes over. “Oh, miss; you shouldn’t be in here!” Her eyes are large and round, brown like a friendly puppy, even if she’s distressed by Rey’s presence. “You’ll get your lovely gown dirty—oh no! I was supposed to help you dress!”

Rey takes the girl’s hand between her own to reassure her. “Don’t worry, I managed perfectly fine on my own.”

“But I didn’t even light the fire in your room. I completely forgot—I’m not used to them having guests, and on such an important day too. They’ll give me my marching orders for sure.”

Rey shakes her head. “I won’t tell them, I promise.”

The maid’s head bobs as she nods frantically, blonde curls sliding from under her cap. “If you please, miss, I’d be ever so grateful.”

“I’m hardly used to being waited on.” Rey smiles at the girl, trying to be encouraging. Her nerves are only making Rey jittery. “I’m Rey.”

“Yes, Miss Kirk, they told me to expect you. I’m Connie.”

Rey supposes she’ll have to get used to this level of formality now, even if she finds it alienating. The name Kirk hardly belongs to her anymore than Solo will in a few short hours. “I’m only here to find some breakfast, but if you have other duties…”

Connie begins to flap again. “I was supposed to bring that up to you too—but I can serve it in the sitting room. Just give me a few minutes to plate it up and I’ll be right in.”

“That sounds perfect to me.” Rey edges out of the room, hoping that the sitting room is the same room she sat in last night. But before she goes, she remembers the stillness of the rest of the house. “Where is everybody?”

“Mrs Solo will still be asleep. She’s never awake for very long, these days. And Mr Solo has gone into town to fetch the priest.”

“I saw no tracks in the snow—“

“No miss, we all use the back entrance when the weather’s like this. It’s much easier than the lane.”

“I see.” It would have been helpful to know that the day before. “Thank you, Connie.”

Rey retreats quietly to the presumed sitting room, and at first all of her attention is taken by the windows, which in the light of day reveal the wonderful, picturesque beauty of the lawns and trees, like something from a landscape painting with how still they are. It’s easy to appreciate it when she has the warmth of the fire to take the snow’s chill away, and a smile splits her face. She crosses to the large bay, where a padded window seat has been built into the space, and kneels on it to take in even more of the view.

Except Connie comes rattling in before she’s even got settled. “Miss! I shouldn’t have told you to come in here…”

But then she trails off, and there’s the sound of a throat being cleared. A masculine throat, and Rey spins to find that she wasn’t as alone in the room as she presumed.

Folded into one of the armchairs—and she’s not sure how, because the chair seems entirely too small for him—is a young man. He’s staring down at his hands, which are clasped together in his lap, so all Rey can see at first is a head of thick, lustrous dark hair, and the size of him. He’s broad, and long-legged, and his hands are easily the size of dinner plates. When he stands up, he’s going to tower over her.

Connie rushes over to Rey as if to tug her out of the room, then seems to think better of it. “I can serve your breakfast in the drawing room, miss, since Mr Solo is already in here.”

A shock goes through Rey. If Connie is calling him Mr Solo, but the elder Mr Solo is out of the house, then this must be Mr Solo the younger.

Rey’s future husband.

He glances up, and Rey gets a glimpse of dark eyes from under long lashes. Only a glimpse—he looks down again, as if alarmed to be caught looking at her, but he shakes his head as if in answer to Connie.

“No, I’ll go.” His voice is deep, but soft. “I can wait elsewhere.”

Rey was right. When he rises from the chair, it seems to take forever for him to reach his full height, but it’s impressive. And that’s with the slump in his shoulders, the way his back curves as if he’s trying to make himself seem smaller. Now she can see his face, she can see how he is a mix of each of his parents—his mother’s eyes and colouring, his father’s stature and bone structure. He’s perhaps thirty years old. All of his features are overlarge, but since he is too, they aren’t incongruent, sitting alongside each other well. Most of all, she’s enraptured by his mouth, which is pink and plump and soft-looking.

She doesn’t have a chance to say a word before he disappears out of the room, leaving her with one last sighting of a broad back clad in a charcoal tailcoat. Only when Connie bustles away does Rey realise she’s been staring at him with her mouth hanging open, and closes it with a snap.

What must he think of her? She feels like an idiot.

Rey takes a seat—one of the sofas, not the chair he’s vacated—and waits for Connie’s return. Rey’s unsure if meeting her intended in such a way is auspicious or not. He hadn’t seemed to take much of an interest in her, but she must admit that he’s hardly the grotesque she’d convinced herself he must be. In fact, those fleeting moments where she’d been able to observe him had rather pleased her—he has a pleasant face, even if he is an alarmingly large man. And he certainly doesn’t seem ill. So why on earth have the Solos had such trouble arranging a match for him?

* * *

After she’s finished her breakfast, Rey doesn’t have very long with her thoughts before Mr Solo—the elder—returns to the house. He doesn’t come through the main entrance door, but distantly she hears the heavy thud of one being slammed shut, and then masculine voices carrying through the empty, echoing space of the house.

Mr Solo comes directly to the sitting room, still clad in an overcoat and winter boots. 

“You’re up!” he says in greeting. “The priest’s in the dining room, ready to go whenever we are. Connie’s helping Leia get dressed.”

He smiles, but it’s a lopsided thing, unsure of itself. More for her benefit than a reflection of what he truly feels. Rey nods, and they lapse into momentary silence before feeling compelled to fill it.

“I met Mr Solo,” she tells him. “Your son, I mean. He was in here when I came down. I hope that won’t bring us bad luck.”

Mr Solo shrugs. “I don’t see what harm it could do. What did Ben say?”

“Oh, nothing really. He left as soon as I realised he was in here.”

“Did he now.” Mr Solo glances at the seat the young Mr Solo had been sat in—obviously his favoured place in the room—and heaves out a weary sigh. “He’s not used to company. I’m sure once he gets used to you he’ll—“

But whatever he was about to say is interrupted by the sound of a ringing bell—a tiny handbell, from the sounds of it, rather than the tolling of a church bell. Rey jumps a little at the sound, and Mr Solo presses his lips together into a thin line.

“That’ll be Leia,” he says. “One moment, please.” He really is only gone a moment before he returns. “Your presence is requested upstairs. Connie will show you to Leia’s room.”

Rey nods, rushing out of the room without another word and up the stairs. Connie is waiting at the top with a flustered smile, and gives Rey an awkward curtsey before pointing out a door at the opposite end of the hallway to the room Rey had slept in last night.

“In there, miss,” she murmurs, then disappears downstairs to whatever other duties await her.

Rey takes a moment to smooth down her hair and dress before entering. She’s sure this is going to be an inspection of her appearance—Mrs Solo ensuring Rey appears fit to marry her son before letting the ceremony go ahead. The door is already ajar so she doesn’t bother to knock, instead stepping through warily.

Mrs Solo sits on a chair at her boudoir, her hair elaborately braided into a twist upon her head. There are even more jewels set into her hair than last night, and her dress is a beautiful, shimmering seafoam green.

She turns to take Rey in with a sweeping look from head to foot. “Don’t you look wonderful! I hoped the dress would suit you—it’s always hard to judge when buying for a stranger—but it’s perfect. Don’t you think?”

“I like it very much,” Rey confirms. 

“But the hair. I knew Connie wouldn’t get it right. Come, sit.” And she pats her chair, rising from it to give Rey the space to sit down in it.

Rey does as she’s told, and immediately Mrs Solo’s fingers are in her hair, undoing the braids Rey added until it all spills around her shoulders. There’s a mirror on the boudoir which allows Rey to look at Mrs Solo as she works—she’s wearing a little rouge to add some colour to her otherwise pale cheeks, and as she sets to work with deft fingers, Rey notices the bandage around her wrist. It’s mostly covered by the sleeve of her dress, but as she works it shifts and Rey is afforded occasional glimpses of it. She’s quite sure it hadn’t been there last night, but then Rey had been so overwhelmed with everything that it’s entirely possible she’d missed evidence of Mrs Solo having an injury.

“This is my ancestral family home, you know,” Mrs Solo tells her. “I grew up here, before we left for the Americas.”

“Is that why it’s known as the Organa estate?”

“Precisely so. We’ve owned these lands for centuries, although the house has been built and rebuilt so much that little of the original remains. My grandfather many times removed established the village and the church. The village owes us a great deal when it comes to the protection of their boundaries, although I think few of them remember it nowadays. The house was empty for such a long time.”

“You went to the Americas?”

“Yes. When I was still a girl—my father was seeking his fortune.”

“What are they like?”

Mrs Solo’s mouth twists into a wry smile. “Wild. We’ve done a great deal of damage over there, you know, those of us who’ve travelled across the ocean. We’ve meddled in an ecosystem that was perfectly under control before and it’s led to all kinds of problems with their uncanny beasts and creatures. Let me tell you, it’s quite something to see a baykok in the flesh. I didn’t want to stay, but then the war broke out, and I lost my parents to it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? It’s not your fault, it was that maniac Palpatine and his insistence on pushing the boundaries out west. I would have returned sooner, except I met Han. It was only for Ben’s sake that we came back.”

“I suppose it’s more peaceful here.”

“In many ways, although I know Han gets restless sometimes. Still, it’s allowed me to teach Ben some of the older traditions. This is one of them—braiding this way. This one is for luck and blessings.”

“It’s lovely,” Rey tells her, and she means it. The braid seems relatively simple, considering some of the elaborate styles Rey has seen on upper class women, with all their curls and feathers, but it frames her face while allowing a few natural curls to drape around her cheeks and down her neck. “I hope your son will like it.”

“He’ll be a fool if he doesn’t. I feared that when I sent for you, that you’d be a weak thing with all the hallmarks of the orphanage—pox scars, rickets, broken teeth. Not that those things would have made you any less of a good person, but you have very much been a sight for sore eyes. How your mother could have looked at such a bonny face and given you up, I’ll never know—though I suppose like most in her position, she had no choice in the matter.”

Rey feels herself blushing, and dips her head away from Mrs Solo’s scrutiny. “My guardian always insisted I was nothing to look at and I would do better applying myself to hard work.”

Mrs Solo covers Rey’s hand with her own. “That’s always a good sentiment, though would benefit without the added insult. No—there’s nothing I can discern which would make him displeased with you. But remember, your position as his wife is a purely legal one. It gives you rights to his property, and this home. You will be lady of the house when I’m gone, with all that entails, and able to take care of Ben as he requires. But we have no expectations of you being a wife to him in other ways—in the ways a woman might ordinarily be expected to. The room you slept in last night will remain your room alone, and Ben will sleep where he has always slept. I have no expectations of grandchildren either. We have no need for an heir.”

Rey wants to ask—what is so very unappealing about Mr Solo that Rey should need her mother-in-law’s blessing to avoid that aspect of her marriage? Plenty of women go to their marriage bed with little appetite for it, and now that Rey has seen him with her own eyes, she can find nothing wrong with her future husband which would make the deed so unappetising. Yet she daren’t ask, already uncomfortable with the promise being made to her in person now, rather than implied in their correspondence.

Perhaps, though his body is unimpaired, his mind is not all it could be. Perhaps he is childlike; she’s met grown people before who never seemed to become adults in their understanding of the world. That would explain the insinuation that he needs taking care of, beyond the way in which a wife might take care of her husband. If this is the case, Rey understands why lying with him would be inappropriate.

“Very well,” Rey replies, pasting on a bright smile. “If you are sure we are ready, shall we proceed?”

“Just so,” Mrs Solo tells her, holding out her elbow for Rey to take. “It will be my pleasure to give you away.”

It’s strange, walking through this house with her arm crooked through her future mother-in-law’s, in a house she’s been in for less than a day. Somehow it already feels familiar to her, this place, like it’s settled around her as easily as the shawl over her shoulders. She feels at home already, even though for the next hour or so she will still have no real claim to the place.

The elder Mr Solo waits for them at the foot of the stairs, his white shock of hair neatly brushed into place and his tweed waistcoat covered by elegant tails. Mrs Solo waves him off, and he enters the room ahead of them, leaving the door open for them to sweep through. Mrs Solo tugs Rey’s shawl away and leaves it hanging over the bottom of the balustrade. 

It’s a wide doorway, and the room they step into is the biggest one Rey has seen in the house so far. It’s also been the most recently decorated, in floral papers of duck-egg blue, though the hearth is as large and as old as the one in the kitchen. Rey understands why they’re having the ceremony in here, rather than in any other room—if this is the original hearth of the house, it’s the one which represents the family’s claim to the land. A hearth as old as this signifies great protection, and that in itself is a blessing on a marriage. It’s been decorated with floral wreaths, and a dining table has been pushed to one side so there is room for them all to stand in front of it.

Mr Solo the younger stands before the hearth with his back to them all, hands clasped in front of himself, and Rey can easily determine the tension in his shoulders. The priest stands with his back to the fireplace, his vivid purple robes at odds with the rest of the room, and his holy book clutched between his hands.

There’s no aisle, not like in a church, and very little has been done to decorate the room other than the wreaths. The only witnesses are Connie and an elderly woman who must be some relation of Connie’s. They’re perched upon a set of dining chairs looking ill-at-ease, but Rey supposes witnesses are a legal requirement. Mrs Solo takes a chair beside them, and only then does her husband settle in beside her, leaving Rey to cross the last few feet on her own.

The priest squints at her but does not even open the holy book before commencing to read the rites. It’s a short service, and Rey keeps her gaze fixed on the wreath in front of her rather than trying to stare at her fiance from her peripheral vision. The priest speaks about the binding power of vows, and the importance of forging new family bonds to stand against the encroaching forces of the uncanny. For all that Rey tries to focus on his words, Mr Solo’s presence looms beside her. When she repeats the vows as implored by the priest, she does so with only half her mind on the words, the other half still awed by the man at her right. And when the priest instructs her to raise her hand so her glove may be removed by her husband, she is shocked to have to look upon him once more.

For his part, he does not look at her face, focussing very much on gently peeling her glove away, which he manages to do without touching her skin. She allows herself a brief moment to look at him as he does so—at the faint line that forms on his brow as he concentrates, and once more she finds her gaze drawn down towards his mouth. But once her glove is removed, touch cannot be avoided, for he has to take her hand within his own, touching them palm to palm: her right to his left, as if they are holding hands. As if they are lovers.

Rey does not look at his face again. The difference between her hand, which she has hardly ever considered dainty, and his when they are pressed together in this way is absurd. But his skin is very soft, and when the priest binds the cord around their wrists, keeping them symbolically united for the remainder of the day, she feels the tremor in Mr Solo’s hand.

There’s little she can do to reassure him—she certainly can’t say a word as the priest finishes intoning his way through the ceremony—so she slips her fingers between his, linking their hands for real.

She feels as much as hears his intake of breath, and when she next glances his way, he is staring at her with unabashed intensity. His eyes, which at first she thought were as dark as his mother’s, are actually a light, honeyed brown this close, fringed with enviably long lashes. She knows it’s hard to judge, but she’s sure there’s a keen intelligence there. And though his skin is pale, there are dustings of moles and freckles across it, and a healthy hint of pink in his cheeks. This close, he smells of laundry soap and cologne, and the scent is not disagreeable.

She wonders what he sees when he looks at her, but knows she will never have the courage to ask him.

Finally the priest seems to be done, and they turn to face their small audience, who applaud politely. Then Connie and her lady relative disappear into the kitchens, taking the priest with them.

“Come,” Mrs Solo instructs, clinging to her husband. “Let’s give them time to lay out the wedding breakfast.”

So they retreat to the sitting room once more, this time Rey trying to find a way of moving while bound to her new husband. It’s strangely intimate, to be tied to a near-stranger in this way, and all the more awkward to try to match their strides to each other’s. But they manage it, settling onto one of the sofas without having to exchange a word, while Mr and Mrs Solo take flanking armchairs.

“That went well, I think,” says Mrs Solo. “Did you enjoy the ceremony, Rey?”

She can feel all eyes on her, even though truthfully she can barely remember a word that was said during it. “It was very nice, Mrs Solo.”

“Please, no more of the Mrs Solo. I can’t abide by it. I’m Leia; and you’re Mrs Solo too now.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose I am.”

Mr Solo’s hand flexes against hers. He’s reacting to what his mother has just said, but in what specific way, Rey doesn’t know—she decides not to look at his face for an answer, and instead retreats inside herself, where a small chink of happiness has just alighted in her soul.

She’s Rey Kirk no more. Now, she’s Rey Solo—and though this new name feels as ill-fitting as her new stays, she’s sure it will come to fit her properly in time. At least this name she has come by honestly, and she is throwing off the mantle of her foundling status, forever shedding her former name’s implications and replacing it with the belonging enshrined in owning a name which relates to a real family.

When Connie announces that the food is served, they return to the dining room. Two chairs have been set close together at the head of the table for the newlyweds to take, and for the first time Rey realises the inherent problems of bound hands. While most of the food can be eaten by hand, rather than requiring a knife and fork, not all of it is so. This is a test of the new bond between couples, a way in which they must learn to work together, and Rey is at the most disadvantage here because she’s lost the use of her dominant hand.

This is most evident when the cake is sliced up and a not insignificant share is deposited on a plate for Rey. It’s too late to refuse a slice by the time her predicament becomes clear: where in Niima she’d have picked it up with both hands and bitten into it, there’s no way of doing that delicately here, not without smearing her fingers in buttercream. And she’ll not have her new family thinking she’s completely feral.

Instead, she sits politely with her free hand in her lap, watching the others dig into the cake with their forks, only imagining how sweet and creamy the frosting would be on her tongue. Perhaps she can persuade Connie to save her slice for tonight, after their hands are unbound.

But it seems her new husband has noticed the problem, and she’s startled to hear him clear his throat, then his free hand moves into view to take up her abandoned fork. He expertly cuts into the cake with the outer tine and scoops up a morsel before offering it to Rey.

She looks up at him to find his face disconcertingly close to hers, and in the corner of his mouth, there’s a smear of buttercream. Her breath catches and she finds it nearly impossible to return her gaze to the fork. But she does, and without further thought she leans into his space and closes her mouth around it, taking the bite of cake.

Too late, she realises that Mr Solo probably intended for her to take the fork from him and feed it to herself. What she’s just done is so overwhelmingly intimate, and she can see the pink glare of his cheeks in her peripheral vision, though she’s sure her own blush puts his to shame.

And yet, he repeats the motion of spearing a mouthful of cake for her, and this time, he raises it directly to her lips. She looks only at the fork, taking the cake between her teeth as delicately as she can, and he keeps feeding it to her until all the cake is gone. Only then does he return to his own slice, and all the while Mr and Mrs Solo continue a bright, stilted conversation across the table, determinedly ignoring what is going on between Rey and her husband.

“What would you like to do for the rest of the afternoon?” Mrs Solo finally asks, when all their plates are clear. “Ben usually reads or takes some exercise, though I suppose the latter is out of the question today.”

A thrill goes through Rey at the sound of his name.  _ Ben. _ Like a secret that’s been revealed to her, a word she’s now permitted to use which very few people are. 

“Let’s return to the sitting room, mother,” he replies. “I can endeavour to read well enough with one hand.”

His voice is still that delicious deep, resonating tone Rey heard this morning and during the ceremony, and he uses it very softly. Rey wonders if he speaks much at all, or who he normally interacts with outside of his parents. She wishes she could engage him in conversation, but she has no idea where to start—he is hardly likely to want to hear about her life in Niima. Why would he want details of the impoverished life his new wife came from?

True to his word, he manages to read with only his right hand free, and she finds it reassuring that the book he buries himself in is a weighty tome, the words too small for her to read when it is balanced on his lap. He does not seem at all childlike, in her opinion, but once more she finds herself at a loss as to why a suitable wife of his own station could not be found. Was he involved in a scandal?

As Mrs Solo tries to keep the conversation going, prying details out of Rey about what Niima is like compared to the village here, Rey notices that he doesn’t turn the pages very much at all. He is listening, then, even if he pretends not to.

Perhaps he is just very shy, and the ladies he’d been introduced to had not been able to penetrate the shell around him. Or perhaps…Rey thinks of her friend Finn, another foundling, and the eventual companion he’d found in Mr Poe Dameron a year earlier. Both of them preferred the company of men to women, in all ways. It’s possible that Mr Solo is the same, and his mother has secured a wife only to stop idle gossip. It would certainly explain why she has no expectations of grandchildren from the match.

Rey puzzles over how to broach the subject, or even if it’s appropriate to do so. If that is the situation, she wishes Mr Solo no ill will, even if she’s sure the strange fluttering in her chest is disappointment. She would happily act as his companion to the world and would not force him to keep any lovers he might wish to take a secret. But it is seeming less and less likely that they will ever have a conversation on their own, let alone one about such a delicate subject.

At least it is winter, and not so far out from the solstice. The darkness draws in early, and as soon as dusk has taken hold over the estate, Mr Solo the elder produces a pair of scissors to snip away the cord binding Rey to her husband.

It allows her to put some space between them, and then after a light supper, plead exhaustion after such a momentous day. Nobody seems surprised, although she can feel her husband’s gaze on her as she leaves the sitting room, and she dares not look at him to try and decipher why.

He doesn’t say a word.

In truth, she is not the least bit tired, but it is a relief to take off the gown and stays, then slip into her night things. The bed is warm and comfortable, and she lies in it, staring up at the ceiling and the ways the firelight casts strange shadows across the plaster. It’s unusual for Rey to have done so little in a day, and she supposes her life will be like this from now on, with most of the hard work cast off for others to do on her behalf. She will have to learn new skills to occupy her time—embroidery, perhaps, or reading. She wishes she had a book with her to occupy her time even now.

The night has begun so early, that she has no idea what time it is when the noise startles her out of drowsing. At first she thinks it’s the wind, and the house settling: old floorboards creaking inside and the howling of winter outside. But then comes scrabbling, like the unseen rats in her old garret but on a much larger scale. Claws on wood, scraping and rasping, and a rhythmic metallic clanking. She can’t tell which direction it’s coming from, only that it has grown louder—closer.

Her first instinct is to remain in the bed, hiding among the drapes, but fear has always made her more active. Instead she climbs out of the bed as quietly as she can, retreating to the fireplace on stockinged feet to take up the poker as a weapon. She even holds it among the flames for a few seconds, to heat the metal and make it all the more dangerous.

From there, she hesitates. She will only find answers if she leaves the room, and she might be best served staying put now she’s armed herself. But the choice is taken away from her when the door swings open, slamming against the wall, and in the guttering light, Rey can see fresh claw marks in the wood of the door, higher than they were this morning.

Her attention is soon stolen from them by what lies beyond. For in the hallway, barely encompassed by the doorframe, stands an enormous beast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](https://stellardarlings.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/stellardarlings) for teasers, moodboards, and all that jazz.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone. Thanks for all your lovely comments! Sorry for the slight delay - I was ready to post yesterday but the world was a little bit on fire so it didn't seem like the right time.
> 
> This chapter mostly brought to you by mine and reylonging's combined id. Notice that I added the virgin!Rey and virgin!Ben tags on? Well...let's see how long that lasts.
> 
> Also, there are a few era-appropriate references to virtue, because the Victorian age was a craptastic time to be a woman, and of course Rey's worth as a person has nothing to do with her previous sexual experience.

The beast fills the entire door frame, and in the low light all Rey can make out is dark fur, claws like daggers, and a wolfish snout filled with teeth which appear longer than Rey’s fingers. Its front paws are easily the size of bicycle wheels and there are manacles around its wrists, with chains draped across the floor. So  _ they _ were the metallic scraping Rey had heard.

But she doesn’t get time to take in any more of the creature before it’s advancing into the room. She backs away, holding out the poker as if the beast will know she can harm it with it, but the makeshift weapon does nothing to slow its progress. She might as well be empty-handed. Were the fire any lower, she might risk tossing handfuls of hot ash at it, but the flames are still high enough to set the room ablaze.

Once the creature’s inside the room, and she’s put the bed between them, she can also see its long tail swishing out behind. There are manacles on the back legs too, and chains trailing from them. Though its body is mostly covered in thick fur, along its back lies a ridge of spikes unlike anything she’s seen before. Rey’s encountered more than her share of creatures; but this beast, she doesn’t recognize at all.

“Get back!” she insists, giving a warning swing of the poker, but the beast merely cocks its head at her. Two eyes, like hard amber, gleam at her with curiosity.

Rey has nowhere else to go, except perhaps out the windows. But to do that would involve sliding the sash open—and she’d need both her hands and to turn her back for that. The creature would be on her before she could pull herself through, and even if she managed it, while the fall might not kill her, she’d certainly not walk away unscathed. 

Then from behind it, two figures emerge. Her parents-in-law in their nightclothes, Leia looking tiny and frail next to Han, who brandishes a rifle.

The beast turns its attentions from Rey to round on them, snarling and snapping at them in ways it hadn’t done to her. Han doesn’t appear to react, staring down the sight on his rifle.

It’s Leia who does the truly astonishing thing. She steps forward, and when the creature growls at her, she scowls at it, grabbing for one of the trailing lengths of chain. “Don’t you make that noise at me, young man. I carried you for nine months and I deserve more respect than that.”

The growling stops, though the tail starts thumping against the floor, swishing from side to side. Rey takes care to stay out of its path, because she can see the tail’s embedded with spikes too, like glittering arrow-heads erupting from the leathery skin. She tries to step around the creature in the direction of the door, but its bulk takes up too much of the room. 

Leia tugs at the chain, and the monster lets out a threatening snarl in her direction. “Stop it, Ben.”

“I told you, honey,” Han says. “It’s Kylo when he’s like this.” He doesn’t lower the rifle, but he does take a length of chain from Leia.

“ _ What?” _ Rey explodes. “What is going on?”

Three pairs of sheepish eyes turn towards her—even the beast’s. It twists around again, then abruptly lowers itself to its belly at her feet, curling up and staring up at her imploringly. She’s reminded of a reprimanded dog. It’s unsettling from a creature of its size—especially since even on its belly, its snout still reaches her waist—and not particularly useful because she’s now trapped in the corner of the room, pinned down by so much bulk blocking her way around it.

Han finally lowers the rifle, but does not let go of the chain he’s holding. “Sorry—we thought we’d got him properly chained up tonight but he escaped again.”

Leia is watching her steadily. She looks so frail in her nightgown, with her hair unbound, and so tiny next to the beast. The bandage Rey thought she’d seen this morning, hidden under the sleeve of Leia’s dress, is clearly visible tonight. It’s obvious what it’s covering: claw marks. 

“With respect,” Rey says through gritted teeth. “That doesn’t answer my question. Did you just call this—this thing Ben?”0

“Yes,” Leia says solemnly. “That’s Ben.”

Such a simple answer explains rather a lot. Not everything, perhaps, but much of what Rey had been wondering since her arrival. Of  _ course _ the Solos had such trouble finding a willing wife for their son, if he’s not fully human.

Those eyes haven’t left her, even though Rey is very careful not to meet them, not when she doesn’t know what she’s dealing with. “Were you planning on telling me at any point?”

“After you got settled. We didn’t want to alarm you—“

“In case I called off the wedding?” Rey snaps.

Leia nods, her mouth pressed in a tight line. “He poses no threat to you.”

“Yet you chained him up anyway!”

“Ben begged us to,” Han cuts in. “As soon as you arrived, he told us to do it. We didn’t know how he would react to you in this form. He got out last night, walked the hallways before we were able to capture him and get him back down to the cellar. We added extra chains tonight but he seems to have pulled those out of the wall too…” He rubs at the back of his neck.

“If he means no threat, why do you even have the chains? Why are you injured, Mrs S—Leia?”

Leia lifts her hand and brandishes the bandaged wrist. “He’s not normally like this, but we were getting in his way.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He wanted to get to you.” Leia sighs, and gives the chain an experimental tug but the beast—Ben—shows no signs of budging. “Han, will you go fetch a round of hot cocoa? I wanted to have this talk at a more opportune time, but I suppose there’s no delaying it any further. Come sit beside me, Rey, and I’ll explain everything.”

Han seems only too happy to retreat, handing the rifle to Leia before disappearing out into the hallway. Leia crosses to the bed and sits herself down on it cautiously, and the creature watches her move with one wary eye. Leia pats the bed beside her, indicating Rey should join her.

Rey takes a step forward, and Ben whines. His furry body brushes against her bare ankle, and she jerks back away from him. He inches towards her, closing in again, and instead she steps up onto the bed, swinging herself across and down next to Leia, the poker still gripped firmly should she need it.

“He means no threat, and yet you were prepared to shoot him,” Rey comments, nodding at the rifle in Leia’s lap.

“It doesn’t contain bullets, but a special potion we have prepared which renders him unconscious. It’s fast acting but he’s especially grumpy when he wakes up, so we don’t like to use it if we don’t have to. We had to last night and Ben did nothing but complain all morning when he came around.”

Ben appears displeased that Rey has evaded him, and creeps around the bed—as much as a creature of that size is able to creep—until he’s on the floor at her feet once more. 

“I don’t understand,” Rey says, trying to maintain eye contact with her mother-in-law rather than the unnerving monster currently trying to act like a lap dog. “What is he?”

“He’s a chimera. It’s not hereditary—he was forcibly turned as an adolescent when we were across the ocean, infected by another creature. He spends most of his time in human form, but between midnight and the dawn he has to take this shape.”

“This is why you returned to England, isn’t it?” Rey asks. 

“Yes. In America, he’d have been slaughtered without question. Over here, people are a little more pragmatic in their approach.”

“Do people know about him?”

“I believe they suspect something. It’s why the eligible young women of the city never took him seriously as a marriage prospect, despite all he had to offer. There are whispers—and of course, he could never stay at social functions very late, or as a guest in somebody else’s home.”

“So you advertised for a wife instead.”

She’d known all along there were strings involved. From the very beginning when Unkar Plutt had brought the advertisement to her—it had been taken from a bulletin board at the bestiary. The position of Mr Solo’s wife advertised like they were seeking a housekeeper, and of course Plutt had removed it so nobody else could respond—no merchant’s wifes could offer up their daughters in pursuit of a good match. He’d assumed he could get a good bride price for Rey if she was their sole option. Only Rey had written to inquire what might be involved in such an arrangement; and then, when it had seemed likely the Solos would approve the match, she lied to Plutt and told him they weren’t interested in her. He’d had no idea until the day she left, and he hadn’t received a penny from them.

“Ben has so much to offer,” Leia says, resting her hand on his flank. His eye rolls to stare at her, but he doesn’t otherwise react. “He needed company and when you wrote, it made perfect sense to me. If creatures liked you, it stood to reason that Ben would like you too.” 

“I may have worked with creatures, but never anything as large as…” She gestures vaguely in the direction of Ben. He huffs, as if he can understand what they’re saying, and tries to lay his snout on Rey’s knee, but she flinches away. Instead he ducks his head, resting it on his front paws—though he does shuffle a little closer, so she can feel the heat of him radiating against her ankle and calf. “And never a shapeshifter. I’m not sure I’m qualified for this.”

“If you succeed in getting along with Ben as a human, this version will be nothing in comparison,” Leia says, though there’s a twinkle in her eye as she does. “Ben can be quite prickly. Even as a boy, many people found him a difficult character.”

“Why did he need to marry at all?”

Leia glances down, then begins to stroke her hand through the fur. It’s thick, shining like polished jet, and deep enough that her hand is almost swallowed to the wrist. “I am advancing in years, and I am ill. Sooner or later, I will not be here to take care of him, and when I am gone, I fear Han will want to return across the ocean. He’s restless—this land was never truly his home. So I thought to offer whatever you required to make the position a fair one. Now that you know the truth, my word still stands—nothing from our agreement changes. You do not even have to take care of Ben in this form while we’re around.”

The beast presses an inch closer to her, and Rey suspects that what Leia wants has no bearing on what he wants.

“He doesn’t look at all harmless,” Rey comments. “A creature built like this seems to me like he’d be extremely dangerous.”

“He can be, though there’s enough of his humanity still inside him that any aggression only gets directed at threats. Ordinarily we let him patrol the boundaries of the village and the estate to ward off violent creatures.”

“Those boundaries—aren’t they tied to your bloodline? You’ve told me you have no need for an heir, and yet if Ben dies without one, the village loses its protection.”

Leia shakes her head. “I have a brother; he’s across the ocean. It’s not too late for him to start a family. There was always a limit on what I would expect from any wife of Ben’s.”

Han returns with a little tray and three mugs of steaming cocoa. He hands one each to Rey and Leia, then retreats to the little chair in front of Rey’s vanity. Ben’s only response to this is a series of warning thumps with his tail, which quickly settle down when the perceived threat retreats. Rey sips at the cocoa slowly, trying to think of more questions, and once again she can feel three sets of eyes trained on her. Waiting for what she’ll do next.

“You said Ben asked to be chained up last night, when I arrived. But why? I hadn’t met him then.”

Han shifts uncomfortably in the chair. “He, uh—he smelled you.” And whatever reaction he sees on Rey’s face spurs him to babble on. “Not like that! But even in human form, his senses are heightened. He came to us when you were asleep last night, before midnight, and told us Kylo was very taken with you.”

“Kylo?” She glances between the pair of them, and notices the beast’s ears prick up at the name.

“It’s what Ben calls the creature,” Leia explains. “He’s described it as a second presence in his mind—though you’d be better asking him about it, during the daytime. He doesn’t much like to talk about this side of himself to me.”

Rey hardly thinks he’ll be more forthcoming with her than with his own mother, but she resolves to ask him anyway.

Tentatively, she reaches out. Her hand is steady, although she’s sure her palm is sweaty, and she curls it into his fur next to Leia’s hand. The fur is unbelievably soft, softer than anything she’s ever felt, even the alpaca she’d once stroked. Leia has described Ben as an outcast, for things beyond his control—and who knows more about that than Rey herself? Rey, abandoned and looked down upon by society for the stain of abandonment. Unloved and unwanted. Except Ben isn’t either of those latter things. He might share her loneliness to an extent, but he also has what she’s always wanted. Instead of Unkar Plutt, trying to find ways to extract money from her, uncaring if she survived, Ben has his parents’ protection.

Her throat burns, hot and tight, and her eyes sting. She turns her face away so Leia can’t see, pretending to observe Ben’s spikes instead. And Ben relaxes underneath her touch, his tail completely stilling, his breathing deep and even. That is, before a rumbling starts up through his chest, a rumbling she takes a moment to recognize as—

“Is he purring?”

“It would appear so,” Leia replies, with an astonished laugh. Then her face turns pensive again. “Rey, I’ve told you everything now. We have no other skeletons in the closet, no other secrets that will come scare the wits out of you.”

Annoyance flares inside Rey again. It’s easier to handle than her self-pity, so she blinks away her tears and responds. “Yes, now. After the wedding—now you’ve told me it all. Now that I can’t leave without facing ruin.”

But the purring has turned into something lower in Ben’s chest, and he gives a warning snap of his teeth in Leia’s direction. Leia withdraws her hand sharply.

“Stop that!” Rey tells him. Astonishingly, he does, turning those begging eyes on her again.

“We couldn’t risk…” Then Leia stops, and shakes her head. “I have no excuses. Reasons, but not excuses. I love my boy dearly, and will do anything to protect him. Especially when my time in this world is so limited. I needed to know he would have somebody to stand by him—and from the moment you wrote to me, I knew you would. But I also know that Ben will protect you in turn. As will we. You’re part of the family now.”

Leia meets Rey’s gaze, those deep, dark eyes reminding Rey so much of her son’s, as they were earlier in the day. Beseeching, but in Leia there’s a ring of steel below, her outer softness belying exactly what she just told Rey: that her maternal love makes her unbending and at times ruthless.

Rey wonders what it’s like to have somebody care about you that much. Leia can make promises to treat Rey like family, but Ben will always be first in her affections.

“What will you do now?” Han asks her carefully.

She takes a deep breath. 

It’s certainly plenty to take in. Of all the things she’d anticipated on her journey here, it hadn’t been this. Yet—of all the things she’d feared, this doesn’t seem so terrible. She doesn’t have a cruel husband, or one with no use for her at all. She isn’t going to be required to be a glorified nursemaid. For the majority of the day, she’ll have a normal, human husband—one she thinks she’ll like the company of, based on the scant time she’s spent in it.

And more than that, so far she’s received exactly what she was promised in return. A proper home. A family. If part of that family is an uncanny beast who seems to have taken a liking to her, she thinks she can cope with that. There are far worse situations to be in. If the worst of it is this lie…perhaps she can live with that.

Ben—or Kylo, or whatever he’s called—lifts his head again, and very slowly lets it rest on Rey’s knee. He doesn’t look at her while he does it, as if he’s afraid to attract her attention and be scolded for it. But instead, she lets him do it, until he realizes she won’t stop him and he’s free to let his head loll there, staring up at her with those puppyish eyes once more.

“I made my vows,” she tells them, stroking lightly over Kylo’s snout. “And I intend to keep them.”

“That’s nice to hear, kid,” says Han. “Only—I think you might have company at night, and there’s not much we can do about it. We’re out of chains.”

Which is how she ends up spending the rest of the night with a monster curled up on the floor beside her bed.

* * *

In the morning, the monster is gone, and instead there’s a naked man on her floor.

Rey’s eyes snap open as soon as she hears his breathing, deep and even, and because she’s not sure what she expects to find she peers over the side of the bed to find her husband sprawled out on his back, with his head cradled into the crook of his bent arm. His dark hair is a tangled mess, though she finds herself curious as to whether it’s as soft as his fur had been. The arm itself, though nowhere near as alarming in size as the beast’s had been, is still exceptionally big, his bicep bigger than Rey could wrap both her hands around. The manacles around his wrists and ankles have grown loose enough to slip off during the night.

The rest of his body is similarly broad, his chest and abdomen clearly defined in ways that Rey finds curiously pleasing. All of his skin is pale, scattered with beauty marks like his face, except for one particular body part which is on full display to her. That is erect, thick, and flushed pink—much like her cheeks when Rey realizes exactly what she’s looking at.

She’s seen other men naked. There hadn’t always been much expectation of modesty in the orphanage or in the bathhouse attached to the dwellings Unkar Plutt rented out. However, Rey is quite sure she’s never seen a gentleman so exceptionally…endowed as Mr Solo.

And with that thought, she retreats back into the center of the bed with her eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling above her. She’s sure she wouldn’t appreciate her husband looking upon her so lewdly were their positions reversed, and so she must endeavour to put the memory of his form out of her head. No matter how much it pleased her. Never before has she seen a man who looks so much like he’d been carved from marble and placed on display in a museum of art, and she’s sure that very few women get such a delightful view to look upon after their marriage. Instead, she clenches her thighs together, attempting to ignore the odd ache she feels there.

But it soon becomes apparent that if she wants to leave the bed, she will have to pass him, and if that doesn’t wake him, he will at least know when he rouses that she’s seen him in the altogether. So she does what she can to protect his modesty, and nudges one of the blankets towards the side of the bed, until it falls, covering her husband.

Then as quietly as she can, Rey climbs out the other side of the bed, throwing a shawl about herself for extra warmth. Connie has forgotten to light the fire again, and Rey intends to take breakfast in the kitchen, but a gentle rattle of chain tells her she hasn’t been as stealthy as she hoped.

When she glances back, her husband is staring up at her with groggy eyes, but he quickly passes from the confusion of fresh wakefulness to alarm. He clutches the blanket to his torso and rolls, getting to his knees.

“My lady—whatever happened last night…”

“Don’t worry,” she cuts in. “You harmed nobody, though I’ve now been availed of your secret.”

He sits back on his haunches, pushing the tangle of hair out of his eyes with his free hand. “I was afraid this would happen.”

“That I would discover the lie?”

He doesn’t meet her gaze. “That Kylo would escape his constraints to get to you—he wanted to do so very badly.”

“So I learned.”

“I’m sorry—he means you no harm.”

“Rest assured, Kylo was the perfect gentleman and my virtue remains intact,” she tells him with a bright smile, then remembers that this kind of humour, while appropriate for the company she used to keep, is probably not appreciated in her new family.

Ben only stares at her with wide eyes, his cheeks stained a deep pink. “Forgive me. My mother didn’t tell me—that is to say, she implied that a young lady of your station might have some prior experience, and I was not to judge you.”

Rey, utterly mortified, can only look at the pattern on the carpet. “She did not ask me that, in her letters. She only required that I not be with child already, and assured me I would not be obliged to share your bed.”

“I see.”

His tongue flicks out to wet his lips, and that serves to draw Rey’s attention back to them. They are, as with all of him, unusually large, though she doesn’t view it as much of a flaw. Instead, she wonders if they’re as soft and yielding as they appear to be.

“You’ll be pleased to hear that I’m a forgiving person,” she tells him. “After some thought, I think I may be able to overlook the way the truth was hidden from me.”

“Then you are a better person than I,” he mutters, “for I have never let go of a grudge yet.” But then he glances up at her, and the morning sun catches his eyes, ringing them in gold.

She’ll never know what took hold of her, for the next moment she is stepping towards him. He watches her with gentle, wary eyes, and when she is but a foot away from him, she notices how shallowly he’s breathing. Like this, he appears like a supplicant to her, on his knees and pleading for some kind of mercy she’s not sure how to deliver. 

It reminds her of the creature the night before, defending her despite her not being in any danger, sleeping beside her bed all night just to ensure she made it through unscathed. Rey, who is used to sleeping so lightly in her garret with a stiletto under the mattress, of having to defend herself against the world because nobody else ever cared enough to. The more she looks at him, beseeching her without words, the more warmth spreads through her. Her anger from the night before uprooted and replaced with something more exhilarating. 

She offers him her hand, so he may rise to his feet, and he scrambles up while keeping the blanket firmly wrapped around himself.

Like this, their positions are reversed. Now he towers above her, her mouth level with his throat. She’s never paid much attention to a man’s throat before—they’re usually covered as is proper—but she has an urge to put her lips upon the yielding skin, to taste him.

She has no idea where these urges have come from. She’s never been particularly stirred by the sight of a man’s body before, but something has roused in her since meeting her husband—all of his size, yet all of his gentleness—that demands she act. A man she’s barely exchanged a handful of sentences with, who she doesn’t know at all—but who her body seems to desire anyway.

“I would not be opposed,” she finds herself whispering, tipping her head back to meet his eyes, although she struggles to raise her gaze past the glory of his mouth. “To sharing your bed, I mean.”

There’s a dizzying power in causing such a reaction in a man. His pupils expand until his eyes appear nearly black, and that majestic throat shifts as he swallows. When he replies, his voice is raspy. “I would like that.”

Then Rey does something which is against all the bounds of propriety—something so forward that even a husband should lose his good regard for her. She raises herself on tip toe, and presses her mouth against his.

She doesn’t know what to do, more than this, but it doesn’t matter. His mouth is as soft as she’d hoped, though his surprise has caused him to still against her. That only lasts a moment—then his arms come up around her, pulling her in closer so he can deepen the kiss. The only thing keeping the sheet in place and protecting his modesty is the press of their bodies against each other.

Rey learns so much in the moments that follow. She learns that his hair is wonderfully silky beneath her fingers, but she also learns that a kiss involves more than just lips. She learns that a kiss can have an effect on the rest of her body, leaving her floating on a cloud, but also aching for more. Ben is tentative with her, as if he is as new to this as she is, and they explore all the ways their lips and tongues may combine to leave her shivering in his arms.

She’s quite sure she’d have been divested of her virtue in the following minutes—she’d felt him, ready for her, pressed against her hip—had Connie not taken that moment to barge into the room.

“Sorry I’m late to light the—oh!” Whatever she was carrying is dropped with a clatter, and Rey and Ben spring apart like they’ve been caught in a scandalous position. Ben only just manages to pin the blanket to his chest with one enormous hand before it slides down and shows Connie more than she’s prepared to see.

They technically haven’t been caught in a scandal. Not as husband and wife the day after their wedding. Yet Rey is sure they have given Connie plenty to gossip about. 

“I’ll come back later, miss,” Connie mutters, and Rey really ought to turn and address her, but she can’t take her eyes off Ben. He’s breathing heavily like he’s been running, and his gaze is heavy-lidded, his focus still on her mouth. The blanket has slipped, revealing the sculpted expanse of his upper torso, and Rey has to work very hard to resist the urge to rest her hands upon him.

“Not at all, Connie,” she says, even while the majority of her being screams its protest. “We’ll take breakfast in the sitting room shortly.”

The dark, wild look in Ben’s eyes suggests he wants to protest too, but instead he gives one slow nod. Very well. He’ll follow her lead.

“We should dress and eat,” Rey murmurs to him. “Is there somewhere we can talk, after? Privately, away from your parents?”

“The library,” he replies. “They rarely venture in there during the day.”

“Very well. After breakfast, then.”

Before she understands what’s happening, he grasps one of her hands, raising it to his lips, and kissing the back of it. Her body reacts to the gentle pressure, tightening at the touch, and his nostrils flare as he looks at her from beneath his eye lashes. He leaves reluctantly, and only Connie’s lingering presence keeps Rey from drawing him back to her.

“Would you like a bath this morning, miss? I can fetch the waters.”

“Yes,” Rey replies. “I think a bath is called for.”

* * *

To Connie’s credit, she doesn’t linger once she’s brought the bath out from storage and placed it before the fireplace, then filled it with steaming water and herbs. Instead, she leaves, noting that there’s a bell for Rey to call her with when she’s ready. Rey enjoys the time to soak and thoroughly scrub her skin clean, and deal with the lingering ache caused by her husband’s presence.

She wonders if he’s bathing too, and if he is having to do the same. It’s certainly what she thinks about to speed up the process.

There is another gown left out for her this morning, this one in a lavender grey, freshly pressed by Connie, and Rey once again manages to dress herself. Then she descends for breakfast, where she humours the attention of her father-in-law, and tries not to spend the entire time watching her husband from her peripheral vision. Though it certainly seems he is unabashedly looking at her, regardless of whether his father notices.

Rey finds herself reacting to Ben’s scrutiny much as she had this morning, and when she notices his nostrils flaring she has to change seats, moving further away from the fire to allow the burn in her cheeks to subside.

Han ignores the elephant—or the monster—in the room and makes no mention of what had happened during the night. Instead, he informs Rey that the tailor will come up from the nearest town as soon as the snow melts, and Leia has insisted she not spare the pennies when choosing her new wardrobe. Then he departs the room as soon as his plate is cleared.

By the time Ben leads her into the library, Rey thinks he’s stopped blinking, his stare on her is so prolonged. Belatedly she realizes that an invitation for them to converse alone might have been misconstrued by him after what had happened in her chamber—and it’s not as though she doesn’t want to continue those activities. However, she feels like she should at least attempt to get to know her husband before throwing herself at him.

She demurely takes an armchair and gestures that he should sit on the sofa opposite her. If he’s disappointed, he doesn’t show it, taking the seat while Rey observes her surroundings. There are more books in here than she’s ever seen in her life. Though the room is not much larger than her bedroom, the shelves stretch from floor to ceiling with ladders to reach the upper rows, and the room has that delightful, musty-sweet air she expects from the presence of books.

“I have questions,” she tells him. “After last night. Your mother told me so much but there’s still things I am curious about. I hope you don’t mind answering?”

“Not at all, Rey.” They are both startled to discover it’s the first time he’s used her given name—she can read it on his face as the thrill of it sparks through her. 

Then he does something even more unexpected—he smiles.

It seems to come so easy to him, even though he’s yet to do it in her presence, and it’s like the sun coming out from behind the thickest blanket of grey clouds. Instantly, Rey feels brighter, instinctively returning the smile. His softens, then, into something close to wonder.

“Do you know,” he says. “I don’t know whether I prefer your first name, or that I can now refer to you as Mrs Solo?”

Rey bites her bottom lip and ducks her head, staring down at her hands, which she has clasped together in her lap. It’s not modesty so much as—as the desire to hide this burgeoning happiness from the world. She’s never experienced much good in her life, or much to smile about at all, and now she’s not sure what to do with it. She’s too used to hiding things to be happy about so they won’t be snatched away.

“I like how both sound when you say them,” she admits to him. “You have a very pleasant voice.”

The compliment seems to leave him at a loss.

“I suppose some of my confusion arises from the…creature being called Kylo,” she says. “Given that he does not appear to speak.”

Ben raises his gaze to look at her directly. “Not to anybody but myself. He lives in here.” And he taps his temple. “When he became part of me, he told me his name.”

“And he tells you other things as well?”

“In a way. He doesn’t use speech like we would understand it, but I’ve learned to interpret what he thinks.”

“Like when I came to the house, you heard him. And you felt you needed to chain yourself up to keep him from me.”

Ben looks stricken for a moment. “Please believe that I knew he would never hurt you. It was only because I didn’t know how you would react to seeing him, and if in your alarm, you might not strike at him—it would very easily lead to injury. Kylo is so large that sometimes it’s easy for people to get accidentally caught by the many parts of his body which are dangerous.” He looks down at his own hands. “He is not a creature built for being gentle.”

“He is quite an alarming sight, I agree.” She clears her throat. “Though he seemed more concerned with protecting me from your parents.”

“He is very taken with you. He was as soon as you stepped foot in the house. Your scent—“

“I had bathed before setting out!”

“No, no, you misunderstand—it was, is, a good scent. Imperceptible to a human, I believe, but Kylo is rather like a dog in that regard. He makes decisions based on his nose, and it seems he decided you were to be his favourite human and he could not bear to be away from you.”

“I suppose that ought to be flattering, given your mother is in the house.”

“Ordinarily he likes her too, but not as much as you. On this, I’m in agreement with him.”

He’s doing it again, looking at her from underneath his eyelashes. It would appear bashful, if the rest of his expression weren’t so…hungry. It makes her breath catch, and then she feels a flutter of alarm at the prospect of Ben having superior senses to an ordinary man. What must she have smelt like to him this morning? At the breakfast table? Now?

“You barely know me,” she tells him breathlessly.

“Perhaps, but I often find Kylo is a good judge of character.” He tilts his head. “I know you know nothing of your heritage, but I suspect there is a trace of magical blood in you somewhere. It’s why he likes you—why all creatures tend to respond to you.”

“Not all of them. The majority of the human race has little interest in me. Even my own mother.”

“Their loss,” he tells her fervently. “And you have us as your family now. We have our problems, but we love deeply. Fiercely.”

Rey does another bold thing, compelled by the look he levels at her. She rises from her armchair and crosses to take a seat directly next to her husband. She lets him take her hand as she responds. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Do you have other questions?” His voice has taken on a gruffer tone with her proximity, and she likes that too. His skin is warm beneath hers, though she worries he will feel all her callouses where he does not appear to have any.

“A few. Mostly about how you came to be this way—your mother says you were infected but I believed chimera to be created by breeding other creatures together?”

He grips her hand slightly tighter, and suddenly Rey is aware of what an intimate, potentially upsetting question it might be to her.

“Forgive me—“ she says, before he can respond. “You need not tell me anything, if it will cause you pain.”

“You should know.” He sets their interlinked hands down on his thigh, and she wills her focus to remain on his voice and words, rather than the firmness flesh she is touching. “My infection was deliberately inflicted by a man named Snoke, who had created the beast which attacked me. I was able to flee back to my parents before he could capture me, and they brought me to England for my protection.”

“Why would anybody do such a thing?”

Ben sucks his lower lip into his mouth—a gesture she’s seen him make a few times now, one which seems to allow him to control his emotions, or at least how they display on his face. “He wanted more soldiers. He was trying to encroach on land that didn’t belong to him, but that was protected by other creatures as well as the people who tended it. He needed more than bullets and smallpox to defeat them.”

“That is truly awful.”

“I could have had it so much worse. My parents managed to stem the infection before it completely took root—without my mother’s intervention, I’d have been entirely changed into Kylo. Instead, she was able to limit it to a few hours of darkness. That, and when I get too angry. Kylo is able to take control then, although I’m able to use that ability to patrol the area around the village and keep other creatures at bay.”

Rey winces. “That sounds risky.”

“There is very little to be found in this part of the country that is bigger than I am,” he tells her with a sly grin, and it completely derails Rey’s train of thought. She’s reminded not only of his size as Kylo, but of how he’d appeared this morning, laid out like a piece of art for her consumption.

“I have been made very much aware of that,” she says, and then in awe of her own boldness, she meets his gaze directly. 

He does the thing with his mouth again—to hide his shock, she thinks, and she hopes she hasn’t been too forward with him this time. 

“Rey,” he whispers, his voice now so hoarse it sounds like the greatest of efforts for him to speak. “Mrs Solo; I have no expectations of you. You do not need to do anything with me merely because you feel obliged by your position as my wife.”

“I can ensure you I feel no obligation. Only—what I said about my virtue earlier, I can assure you is quite true. I have no experience at all.”

“Nor I.”

When she next glances up, she finds his face is very close to hers, and those wonderful eyes seem almost molten black with desire. Her gasp is swallowed up by him when he takes her face between his hands, and kisses her once again.

The hesitation of the morning is gone, the tentativeness replaced instead by eagerness, though they still have plenty of curiosity to sate. Rey finds she misses the warmth of Ben’s bare skin underneath her fingers, so covered up as he is, and she has to content herself with his hair, and how she is able to hold him against her with the lightest touch. For his part, one set of long fingers have come to rest against her throat and jaw, while the others are at her waist, pressing her stays even further into her skin.

Rey’s curiosity is not even a little diminished when Ben takes his mouth on a tour of her exposed skin, but she finds she does not mind his explorations so much. Kissing him is wonderful, but the way his plush lips feel nipping at her throat, or sucking gently at her collarbone leave her a writhing mess underneath him.

And somehow, she  _ is _ underneath him. They’ve become entangled on the sofa, with her pinned down among the pillows and his body covering hers. His legs are cradled within hers, though the many layers between them means the way they press against each other there is far less interesting to her than how his clever mouth and tongue have found the curve of her neck.

He tries pulling her bodice down, to give himself access to even more of her skin, but only finds himself confronted with the underlying chemise and stays. Rey finds herself giggling at the resulting frown this produces from him, only for her laughter to be cut short when she’s suddenly aloft. Ben has lifted her, easily, as if she weighs nothing despite her many skirts, and shifts them so he is sitting upright once more, and she is sprawled across his lap facing away from him. It gives him access to her back, where his deft fingers begin to loosen her ties.

She ought to stop him. It’s improper to do such a thing in the middle of the day, in the middle of the house. Beastly, even. What if today is the day his parents venture into this room?

But maybe she is as beastly as him, because she doesn’t want him to stop. Not as her bodice loosens, and just as quickly, her stays. He pulls the edges apart, undoing the laces entirely, and then gliding his hands down her arms to push the fabric away from her. Both layers hit the floor heavily, and Rey is left clad only in her chemise from the waist up.

She twists around to straddle him, taking advantage of his awed stillness to loosen his own garments. She blushes under his scrutiny, but she knows he means it honestly, and there is nothing but reverence in his stare. Rey understands the feeling; she wants to see him again, and this time to touch all the skin he tantalised her with this morning.

Luckily, his clothes are less fussy than hers, and she’s able to unbutton everything quickly, shoving the cloth aside so it frames his chest. She does nothing for a moment except gaze at it—at how perfectly formed he is. But his rapid breath, the rise and fall of his ribcage, and the scattering of hair, reminds her that he is not a work of art; he is indeed a man. And all the better for it.

Abruptly he lifts her again, this time getting to his feet with his hands supporting underneath her buttocks. She gives a startled cry, and wraps her legs around his hips, her arms around his neck, for better support.

“Ssshh,” he says into the skin of her neck. “We don’t want to be interrupted.” But then to ensure that doesn’t happen, he crosses to the door, turning the key in the lock to prevent the outside world from encroaching on their time together. How strange it is to be carried across the room so easily, as if she doesn’t encumber him at all.

Rey expects him to return them to the sofa, but instead he deposits her on the nearest ladder. She’s perched precariously on the edge of a step, and she steadies herself with her feet.

“These need to come off as well,” he says of her skirts, and this time she assists him in loosening the ties, showing him where the hooks are so that he may divest her of her clothing as quickly as his nimble fingers can work. 

Her overskirt tumbles to the floor, and then he drops to his knees, pulling her petticoat down over her hips as he does so. Now she sits before him in only her undergarments—the chemise, her stockings, and she realises belatedly that the cloth is rucked up around her hips, her legs parted. He is staring once more, this time at the juncture of her thighs, his breathing and his gaze both heavy.

“You’re damp,” he comments, and before she can squirm under his scrutiny, or close her legs to him, he grips her thighs. “Please—don’t hide. Your scent is…” 

He inhales, and she thinks she understands. This is Kylo’s influence.

“Can I kiss you there?” he asks, and she curls her hands around the rails on the ladder, gripping tightly.

“Yes,” she whispers. “I think I’d like that.”

She’s not sure what to expect—she’s never heard of such a thing, although her blood thunders now he’s suggested it. He parts her legs further, carefully, to accommodate the breadth of his shoulders, and the first thing she feels is his hot breath fanning over her. Then his tongue—warm, wet, somehow silky and rough at the same time. Mapping the shape of her, listening to her soft moans and pleas. And then his lips following, wrapping around the spot that makes her buck her hips into his face. 

It’s a good thing she has such a tight hold on the ladder, because her legs are shaking too hard to keep her in place—and then he drapes one over his shoulder anyway, to draw himself even closer, and the only thing keeping her anchored to earth is the ball of one foot.

It’s truly as if he’s kissing her there, as he asked to, exploring her in the same way he’d explored her mouth earlier. It’s a similar sensation to when she’s touched herself, yet her fingers are no comparison to the sensations of his mouth. Before today she couldn’t have imagined a man doing such a thing, let alone enjoying it, and yet when she allows herself to glance down at him—to take in the obscene scene taking place between her thighs—he seems enamoured. Eyes closed, face content, nostrils flared.

She’s making sounds she’s never heard before—sometimes breathy, sometimes pleading, and sometimes, mortifyingly, animalistic groans. Ben reaches up to cover her mouth with his fingers, rather than removing his lips to utter a warning to her. It doesn’t matter; she understands what he’s trying to say anyway. They could be overheard, and she needs to be quieter. She licks at his fingers, delighting in the noise it wrenches from him instead.

And just like when she touches herself, the pleasure builds, a tension in her pelvis that demands release. She finds herself grinding onto her husband’s face, surely shattering any respect or notion of propriety he might have had about her; she won’t be able to look him in the eye afterwards. But nothing could restrain her in this moment, and he does not complain, only working his lips and jaw faster, the wet, smacking sounds adding to her shame. It sends shivers across her skin, sparks of bliss down her spine.

When the pleasure bursts, it is sudden, and Rey tosses her head back, ready to scream it to the heavens. Only Ben’s fingers remind her to be quiet, and she sinks her teeth into his thumb instead as her world narrows to the conflagration between her legs. It’s fiercer than anything she’s ever felt before, a ripple becoming a swell becoming an ocean, dragging her underneath until the world fades to nothing but the way she feels.

“That was quite the bite,” Ben comments when he removes his thumb from her mouth, although she can see she hasn’t even left indentations, let alone broken the skin.

“I could kiss it better,” she offers.

He shakes his head. Ben rises to his feet again, and he’s already unlaced his breeches and taken himself in hand. It’s a great deal pinker than it was earlier, though it seems even greater in size, though Rey is sure that’s not possible. It must only be her nerves that make it seem so. 

She wonders if they will return to the sofa, or even to the desk or the floor—she’s sure the act is supposed to be done with him lying above her. But instead he steps between her legs, wrapping the one that had been hitched over his shoulder around his waist instead.

“Do you still want to?” He presses his forehead to hers. There’s an added intensity to him now, a tension beneath the way he’s holding himself still, which suggests it’s taking everything he has to ask her that. To stop and check that she still desires him, now he’s fulfilled her pleasure.

Her heart swells unexpectedly with how sweet this man is—how lucky she is, when she’s heard all kinds of tales about the demands of men. That he can stop in this moment, despite the great effort it is taking him, to reassure himself of her willingness, speaks so much of him even when she’s known him for such a brief amount of time. It makes her determined to make him feel as good as he made her feel.

She cups his cheek, and brushes a gentle kiss to his nose. “Yes, I still want you.”

He nods, then surges forwards. His face is buried in her shoulder as he breaches her, and she’s glad, because she thinks if he’d been looking at her face he’d have hesitated, even stopped. He is monstrously large, and even despite his ministrations, the way he stretches her as he fills her is an uncomfortable, overwhelming pressure. She sinks her teeth into her lower lip, this time, and stifles any sound she might make, waiting for his hips to meet hers. For good measure she takes hold of his hair again, gripping it tightly.

She’s not sure how much of the pressure she can withstand, but he withdraws a little—not all the way, but enough to make room for him to push into her once more. His hips make a few stuttering thrusts, and as he does, he brushes over a place inside her that makes the pressure worthwhile—it makes her toes curl, makes the sparks of pleasure from earlier reignite down her spine. She cries out—

But it’s over. He’s making a strangled sound, deep in his throat, his hips still, his body still buried deep within her. He pants against her, then she feels his mouth move against her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he sounds drugged. When he lifts his head, his eyes are half-lidded, his face slack. “You were—“

She kisses his nose again. “You have nothing to apologise for,” she tells him truthfully.

“I can do better. Longer.”

Rey doesn’t think length is an issue, but she brushes the sweaty hair back from his face. “We should probably try that in more appropriate surroundings.”

“Yes.” He nods fervently. “Want you in my bed. Want to see you naked.”

She supposes it is only fair—she’s already seen him unclothed. She looks around the room—at their discarded clothing, which is strewn everywhere. 

“What on earth are your parents going to think when we emerge as dishevelled as we are?”

“There’s a back staircase, for the servants. Nobody needs see us.” He’s still inside her, still thoroughly entangled with her, and seems in no way prepared to change that.

“Well, then. Shall we?”

He doesn’t need asking twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](https://stellardarlings.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/stellardarlings) for teasers, moodboards, and all that jazz.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hot breath wakes Rey, fanning over her outer thigh.
> 
> “Mmm, Ben,” she mumbles, eyes still firmly shut, burrowing her face into the pillow. She must have kicked the blanket away—or he’s peeled it off her. “Not now, too sore.”
> 
> It’s true. Although she very much enjoys it when her husband uses his mouth on her, they’d already gone through several vigorous rounds before falling asleep. She’s found over the previous few weeks that sometimes she needs a break to recover from his eager attentions; it’s proving tricky to keep up with his apparently boundless interest, even when she’s willing and eager.
> 
> The breath on her thigh is replaced by a lick from a very warm, very wet, but also very rough tongue. It’s not Ben’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you for all your comments and love for this story. I'm happy you're all still enjoying it! One eager eyed reader did notice that the end of chapter three was lightly inspired by a particular scene in Bridgerton, so kudos to anyone else who did.
> 
> Slight warning in this chapter: towards the end there will be mention of bodily injuries, though I'm not going to describe them in any great depth. They're in the penultimate few paragraphs if you want to skip them - skip from "But then the dark, enormous body of Kylo comes limping through the trees." to the very last paragraph.
> 
> Also, I mention midwives in this. Nowadays the term midwife tends to refer to (mostly) women who assist pregnant people with pregnancy and childbirth. However, midwives used to have a much broader function, assisting with birth, healing, and death as well - and this is the capacity midwives have in this universe, functioning more like community healers.

Hot breath wakes Rey, fanning over her outer thigh.

“Mmm, Ben,” she mumbles, eyes still firmly shut, burrowing her face into the pillow. She must have kicked the blanket away—or he’s peeled it off her. “Not now, too sore.”

It’s true. Although she very much enjoys it when her husband uses his mouth on her, they’d already gone through several vigorous rounds before falling asleep. She’s found over the previous few weeks that sometimes she needs a break to recover from his eager attentions; it’s proving tricky to keep up with his apparently boundless interest, even when she’s willing and eager.

The breath on her thigh is replaced by a lick from a very warm, very wet, but also very rough tongue. It’s not Ben’s.

Rey bolts upright, pushing her hair out of her face and blinking down at the area where she’d just been licked. Kylo’s snout is resting on the mattress next to her bare leg, and as soon as he sees she’s awake, he lifts it, pushing his nose against her skin.

“Stop it—no!” she tells him, wriggling away to pull her nightgown back into place. But Kylo doesn’t stop, propping himself up on the bed on his front paws to nudge against her torso with his entire head. Pushing her towards the other side. 

She rolls away. “What are you doing? There’s no space for you on the bed—you’re too heavy, you’ll break it.” Yet it doesn’t appear Kylo wants to get onto the bed beside her, as he keeps nudging her until she’s off the bed completely, stumbling to her feet wearily.

The room is dark and cold, since it’s clearly after midnight, and she shivers, wrapping her arms around herself, pouting in the direction of her vacant, warm bed. Kylo has followed her and now his body blocks her access back into it.

“What on earth is this about?” she demands of him, but the beast doesn’t answer her. He never does. Instead he crowds up against her once more, nosing her with his snout until she backs up towards the door. It’s ajar—she’s learned not to close it all the way, to give Kylo the ability to come and go, lest he make a ruckus about being shut outside. 

If Kylo understands her, he makes no attempt to stop. She’s herded all the way to the door, then out through it, and only the steady heat that his enormous body throws out keeps her from breaking into true shivers. She feels the strange combination that being yanked out of sleep and given a shot of adrenaline produces—she’s alert, but could easily slide back into her former state if given the opportunity. Only, she’s quite sure that Kylo has woken her for an important reason, so she tries to allow the adrenaline to do its work, if he is only trying to protect her.

She pads along the hallway on bare feet, reversing the journey she’d made all too recently, from Ben’s bed to her own. While it’s wonderful to share his, and to drift off in his arms, she’s also aware that households like this have expectations of wives sleeping in separate rooms to their husbands. And so, every night when he is asleep, and before he’s transformed into Kylo, she slips away and back to her own room. At some point before dawn Kylo will join her and claim the rug beside her bed.

It’s only when Rey reaches the doorway to Ben’s room that she understands what Kylo is doing. She stops, turning to Kylo and putting her hands on her hips, hoping she looks suitably annoyed, given she can hardly put voice to her frustration without waking the rest of the household.

Kylo doesn’t meet her eyes, instead nudging at her belly until she has to step backwards into the room, and he continues to herd her back towards Ben’s bed. The sheets are rumpled, and the room is still faintly scented by their earlier activities.

“This is ridiculous,” she mutters. The back of her knees hit the bed, and she sits down on the mattress. Kylo stops on his haunches, watching her expectantly. “You know the bed is cold, now? Since nobody else is in it?” 

But he waits until she lies down, wrapping the blankets around herself to stave off the worst of the cold, inhaling the lingering aroma of Ben’s cologne. She keeps to one side of the bed, turning her back to where Ben ought to be. She doesn’t like being here without him—without his arm around her waist, without his breath ruffling the hairs on the back of her neck. 

Kylo nods when she seems settled, sprawling himself out beside the bed to ensure Rey cannot creep past him to escape again. 

“When I am grumpy from lack of sleep in the morning, you can explain it to Ben,” she tells him, and his tail thumps once against the floorboards in acknowledgement.

* * *

At least come the morning, when Connie creeps in to light the fire, Ben has found his way back into the bed. He hasn’t a stitch of clothing on him, but luckily he’s also burrowed underneath the bedding, sparing Connie an eyeful of things she probably didn’t wish to see.

Said eyeful is currently pressed firmly into Rey’s lower back.

Ben stirs, judging by his breathing—Rey can feel it twice over, from the slight changes in the rise and fall of his chest against her back, to the push and pull of his breath across the nape of her neck—but he doesn’t show it in any other way.

Rey also keeps still. Connie doesn’t greet them when she enters at such an early time, and Rey is still unused to how she is supposed to act around servants. Her instinct is to be friendly, and to make polite conversation with Connie at every encounter, but she’s beginning to get the impression this only unnerves the poor girl. So instead, she lies in her husband’s arms, hoping her wakefulness will not be noticed.

The room is larger than her own, although it only has one set of windows, which look out onto the rear woods. It means the light in here, when the curtains are drawn, is always more muted and dappled than the brightness of her own outlook. The decor is more masculine and rather plain, although Ben does have the benefit of an attached bathroom, including a clawfoot tub and a flushing water closet. The room also opens into a small personal study through one door, and a dressing room through another. The contents of the latter are rather spartan; when the dressmaker delivered Rey’s new garments a few days ago, they were mistakenly transferred into that closet by Connie, until Rey took it upon herself to move them to the wardrobe in her own room. She’s sure Ben wouldn’t want her encroaching on his space in that way.

Though he certainly has no issues with encroaching on her space. As soon as Connie leaves, closing the door quietly behind her, his hand slides up from where it has been resting over her ribs to curl around a breast.

“Are you sore?” he asks, before she can voice her discomfort. She nods lazily. “A pity.” But his hand retreats, and he places a series of hot, open-mouthed kisses along the skin which is bare to him. “Why are you in a nightgown?”

She yawns against her hand. “I was asleep in it, until Kylo herded me all the way back here.”

“Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry; he nuzzles his nose into her hair. “It’s nice waking up with you, though.”

“It is,” she agrees, feeling a little shy at the admission. 

“Kylo doesn’t like you leaving to sleep in your own room. He likes it when you stay in this bed—it smells like both of us, and you smell like me.”

“Is that so?”

“And I agree.” She can tell—he twitches against her back. Rey has come to learn that some of Kylo’s more animalistic instincts spill over into Ben, and he’s becoming bolder in admitting to them lately. 

She turns around in his arms, so that she has a stubborn presence poking her belly instead. “I would like to stay, but I thought it improper.”

Ben is different this morning to how she’s ever seen him. His hair is a mess, tangled up around his face, and fresh stubble lines around his mouth. Rey knows how deliciously it can scrape against her skin, but also how it can leave her with such visible marks. His voice is lower, gritty with sleep, and his face more relaxed, at ease. And the way his throat is bare to her, before he hides it away behind his clothing—this feels special, a secret she gets to keep.

“Rey, your husband turns into a monster at the stroke of midnight. I think the bounds of propriety are more fluid than normal in this house.”

She presses on. “But I would have to return to my own room to dress.”

“Not if you’d left your new garments in my closet, where I told Connie to put them.” One corner of his mouth lifts as he teases her.

“That was you?”

“I took the hint and assumed you wanted a space of your own.”

“No! I assumed you wanted to keep this space as yours.”

He rests his forehead against hers. “Now, why would I want that, when I could have this every morning? If you want to move into here—permanently—I’d be delighted. Otherwise, I’m afraid you might be facing more nights of Kylo dragging you back here when you leave.”

“In that case, and in the interests of a good night’s sleep,” she tells him solemnly, though inside she’s bright with joy. Then she shifts her hand between them, grasping her husband within her fist. He gasps, rutting his hips towards her. “Do you know, I have a very particular craving for breakfast this morning?”

Ben is perfectly happy for her to use her mouth however she wishes.

* * *

“We ought to take a walk,” Rey announces after she’s had a second, more hearty breakfast. “Now that the snow has melted.”

It’s a bright winter’s day outside, which Rey understands means it will still be bitingly cold. However, she’s actually looking forward to the prospect of fresh air, and learning more about the landscape around her new home. She hasn't ventured outside the grounds of the house yet, since the world has been blanketed in snow and frost.

Ben glances up at her over his cup of tea. “Where would you like to go?”

“Perhaps just to the village and back. I saw almost nothing of it when I arrived here.”

And so she dons her new outerwear: boots and cape, bonnet and gloves, plus a little basket if she decides to purchase anything from the shops, and takes Ben’s arm on the manor’s threshold. Most of his skin has been hidden accordingly, leaving only the face she’s grown so familiar with lately—and so fond of.

They leave through the back door, since the main gate is still barred shut, and apparently this path is a much more pleasant route to take. The air outside is crisp but not unpleasant, not when so little of her skin is exposed to it. And her husband acts like a portable heat source beside her. He moderates his steps to let herself tuck into his side, for the most benefit, and they make their way out into the woods.

Patches of ice linger beneath the trees, where the sun cannot reach, but around them the world is painted in rich, loamy shades. Somewhere, far off, Rey can hear water running—a stream, perhaps?—and even birdsong.

“It’s lovely out here,” she comments to Ben. “It feels peaceful.”

“We’re still within the boundaries. Far from anything uncanny—apart from myself.”

She beams up at him. While Kylo’s presence has been an adjustment, for the most part she’s asleep when he’s in existence. “I expect it’s a different world at night.”

“There’s more life out here, strange as it may seem. All kinds of creatures which only venture out in the dark—foxes and badgers, even some birds. There are plenty of scents and sounds for Kylo to track.”

“Has the snow made that harder?”

Ben hesitates before answering. “It can do.”

There’s something he isn’t telling her—but then he points out a distant patch of ivy, an eruption of greenery amongst all the black and brown of winter, and she quite forgets what they were talking about.

This path does indeed take much less time to reach the village than when Rey first arrived, although perhaps being unburdened by falling snow helps their progress. She sees the smoke rising from chimneys before she sees anything else, as they climb up a little brow. At the crest of the hill, they look down upon the village, which sits in a bowl of land surrounded by the woodland. At the centre is the square Rey first arrived at, surrounded by a tangled knot of narrow lanes, which thin out until the houses at the edges of the village are surrounded by decent plots of land for smallholdings. The church spire rises above it all, and it has a kink to its height which speaks of badly-cured wood. 

Beyond the village, Rey is able to see the fields which yield to the woods, and then when she turns around she can see the Organa house sitting at the foot of the hill they’ve been slowly climbing. The road she walked to reach the house on the first day skirts around the bottom of the hill, which is why it took her so much longer to get there. Enough frost remains covering the scene that it seems to glitter before her.

“Do you like it?” Ben asks her.

“It’s very charming! It’s hard to imagine such a place ever feeling anything less than peaceful or pleasant.”

They descend the short path down into the village square, and then spend a few minutes in each of the little row of shops. Rey is surprised by how many there are, but she supposes it’s quite the journey to the nearest town with a market. There’s a grocers, a bakery, an ironmonger’s, a chemist’s, and a haberdashery. The street is bookended by public houses, The White Hart and The Dragon. Those are the only buildings with any signage to indicate their purpose; whereas the shops are only distinguished by their larger windows displaying different goods.

Ben also assures her that there are a number of carpenters and a smith elsewhere in the village, though a midwife instead of a doctor.

“My mother prefers it that way,” he tells her. “I know doctors are the fashionable thing in larger towns, and they go through a great deal of training to achieve their skills, but midwives are closer to the old ways. Ours is well-versed in ritual and works hand in hand with the preacher.”

In the end, Rey only purchases something in the bakery. In the other shops, she’s felt too much under scrutiny—evidently word has spread around the village about her arrival, along with her clear and apparent social standing when she did so. Even the rare appearance of Ben doesn’t divert their attention, despite his great stature. While his presence is apparent proof that he isn’t as sickly as some among the villagers have assumed, that only makes their marriage all the more strange and worthy of scrutiny. Rey can feel the lingering gazes on her back, even if Ben seems oblivious.

But the baker is either oblivious to the gossip or does not care for it.

“That’ll be a crown, ma’am,” she says as she wraps up the sweet cake Rey has asked for.

“Are there no egg custards?” Ben inquires, squinting through the glass at the display of wares. “Those are mother’s favourite.”

“I’m afraid there’s a shortage of eggs, sir,” the baker replies. “I’ve had quite the to-do getting hold of enough these past few weeks even to make cakes.”

“Have the chickens not enjoyed the cold weather?” Rey asks, carefully placing the cake in her basket.

“There are hardly any chickens left! Something’s got most of them.”

Ben, who was in the process of taking the basket from Rey’s grasp, almost drops it. “What did you say?” he asks sharply.

“It’s why I was so surprised to see the pair of you out and about. Most people have shut themselves up, since we don’t know what’s on the prowl out there. We hope it’s a wolf, but—“ She shrugs. “It’s been a bad winter. Creatures get desperate in times like these. The boundaries don’t appear to be as strong as they ought to be.”

* * *

Ben doesn’t say a word on their journey home, and for her part, Rey has no idea what to say to him either. He’s tense, worried, and it doesn’t escape her attention that he ensures that he walks on the side facing the woods, with his broad body between her and anything which might emerge from the trees.

Then, as soon as they’re inside, he disappears to speak to his mother in the sitting room.

Rey is thankful, if a little upset. She’s had plenty of time to think in the silence and sets out to seek out Han. He is to be reliably found in the drawing room, reading the day’s papers in silence.

“I’ve been thinking,” she says, when he glances up at her over a headline detailing some wrangling in parliament. “I ought to learn to shoot.”

Han’s eyebrows propel up in the direction of his hairline. “Is that right?”

“I hope I never have to use it, but there may come a time I need to use your tranquillisation formula on Kylo.”

He folds the newspaper up and sets it on the table beside him. “What’s brought this on, kid?”

Rey smoothes her hands down her skirts. “Chickens are going missing from the village. They have been since I arrived here.”

Han spits out a word Rey is sure he’d never dare say in Leia’s presence. But then he peers at her. “You think this is Kylo, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not. He hasn’t left the house since you arrived—and that’s the problem. He’s not been patrolling at night like he usually does, and something else has taken advantage of that fact.”

“Oh.”

The lead weight in her stomach, the one which has settled there since the baker’s proclamation, shifts. Kylo isn’t the culprit after all. But the weight does not lift entirely—because this wouldn’t be happening if Kylo weren’t guarding her bed every night, even though there is nothing to guard her against. 

She finds she cannot meet her father-in-law’s eye. “So you don’t think I need to learn to use the rifle after all?”

“No—I think that’s more reason than any. Come on, I’ll show you.”

* * *

Rey hasn’t yet ventured down into the cellars, although she is pleasantly surprised to find that despite being below ground, the area has been split into a series of rooms with the same gas lighting as upstairs, so they are warm and well-lit. Hardly the damp and dusty basement she had been anticipating when Han opened the door to the cellar stairs.

“I keep all this stuff down here because Leia doesn’t like knowing about it,” he tells her conspiratorially as he unlocks a cabinet in the corner of one room. This room seems to be dedicated to the storage of old items of furniture—there’s another for wine, one used as a cold store for food, one for coal, and then the largest space is set aside for Kylo when they must keep him contained.

Han opens the cabinet door with a flourish. It takes Rey a moment to understand what she’s seeing, there’s so much crammed inside it. Then she realises: weapons. Lots of weapons. Not just the rifle, but a shotgun, and hand grenades, and all kinds of things she doesn’t even know the name of. 

Han watches her with an expectant grin. Rey is taken aback by his enthusiasm, but pastes a smile onto her face. Current stash of weaponry aside, Han is harmless. “Not bad, huh?” he asks her. “Get your outdoor gear on and I’ll show you how to use some of this stuff. And whatever you do—don’t tell Leia!”

* * *

Rey bathes before coming to bed that night, trying to scrub the gunpowder from her skin, but she’s sure Ben smells it on her anyway.

“You shouldn’t encourage my father,” he complains, nuzzling into her neck. “You have no need to learn to shoot; I will keep you safe.”

“Perhaps I would like a hobby. Marksmanship seems more entertaining to me than embroidery.”

That, at least, is the truth. She’d rather enjoyed herself, out on the front lawn, aiming the rifle at a target Han had set up for her, progressively moving it further and further away. He’d proclaimed her an excellent shot, although she’s not sure how much of that is flattery.

“And perhaps you decided to take that hobby up directly after learning the village might be under siege.”

Rey brushes the hair away from his eyes, so she can meet his stare directly. “I have no doubt of your capabilities. However, you cannot be by my side all the time.”

“I beg to differ.” He wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. 

“No, you cannot. Not if it puts the villagers in danger.”

He brushes his mouth against hers. “We’ll find another way of improving the boundaries.”

She puts her hand between them, so he cannot kiss her again. “And in the meantime, Kylo will go out at night and patrol, as he used to do. Or I won’t get a wink of sleep knowing the villagers are unprotected while I lie here in my enormous bed, with thick walls and a rifle to protect me.”

Ben rolls away, huffing as his head hits the pillow. “I can’t always control Kylo, you know. Not once he’s taken over.”

Rey props herself up on one elbow to look down at him. “Then let me make myself clear, Kylo, since I know you’re in there: if you go out to patrol at night, I shall remain here in this bed, safely tucked away from any danger. If you do not, I shall take myself to my own room, where the door will be barred to you, no matter how much you scratch at it.”

“He doesn’t like that,” Ben tells her grimly. “I don’t like that.”

“So you know what you have to do.”

He runs a finger down her bare arm. “I do, and I believe he’s aware of the consequences too.”

“Good.” And because this is the closest thing they’ve come to a quarrel or a disagreement between them, she presses her mouth to his, to show that the moment has passed. He seems easily encouraged, returning and deepening the movement.

“There is still,” he pants between kisses, “a good deal of time until midnight.”

“What would you like to do with the time?”

“I’d like to get my scent all over you again. It upsets both of us when you wash it away, and the gunpowder is a most unpleasant replacement.”

“And I suppose you have a plan for how to do that?”

He smiles, and she delights in it—how eager and boyish he can appear like this, far from the saturnine man most people assume him to be. “I have a most thorough plan indeed.”

* * *

Kylo might have huffed and puffed and voiced his great displeasure at being kicked out into the cold night—waking Rey when he transformed at midnight and pleading her with baleful eyes until she told him to go do his duty—but he went anyway. And Rey was delighted to hear the following week, when Leia felt strong enough to walk to the bakery with her, that no further poultry had gone missing.

Leia invites the preacher and the midwife around to discuss the village boundaries over afternoon tea, and it makes perfect sense to Rey as soon as she meets Jannah as to why Leia likes her so much. She is young—not the matronly presence Rey expects—but wise beyond her years, her dark curls pinned up primly beneath her white cap, and her indigo robes a vivid splash of colour in the pale splendour of the drawing room.

“I don’t often carry my reference books with me,” she tells Leia, after they explain their concerns about the weakening boundaries to her. “Most of my knowledge is stored up here.” She taps her temple. “But for this, I think I’ll need to consult them. It may not be that the boundaries have waned in their effectiveness—but that creatures have been pushed into this area from elsewhere.”

“I’ve heard that wolves are being hunted rather viciously in Scotland at the moment,” says the preacher. “That could have led some to stray further south and to our door.”

“Either way, the boundary needs strengthening,” Leia replies.

“I quite agree,” says Jannah. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve determined the appropriate way of doing so.”

“What of your brother?” asks the preacher. “The more Organa blood involved in any ritual, the better our chances.”

To the casual observer, Leia’s face doesn’t betray a flicker of emotion at the question. However, Rey has spent enough time with her now to notice the tension beneath her eyes, the tightness at the edge of her mouth. “Luke won’t be returning to England, not unless he inherits the land.”

“Not even to protect the village?” Jannah asks.

“He and Ben don’t get along.”

“I see.” Jannah and the preacher share a glance.

It’s only later, after Jannah has conducted a check of Leia’s health and left with the preacher, that Rey asks Leia to elaborate. “I didn’t know there was tension between Ben and your brother?”

Leia rests her hand on her Rey’s, and closes her eyes. “Luke didn’t want Kylo in the house, and wanted to exorcise him from Ben’s body. Given we’d already sought advice from everyone whose opinion was worth having, we knew to try and do so would kill Ben. Luke refused to stay under the same roof—or even on the same continent.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault my brother is a stubborn fool.”

“We’ll figure this out without him.”

Leia takes her other hand too. “I’m sure of it, my dear. And for the smiles you’ve brought to Ben’s face, if I had to choose between having you here or my brother, it’s no contest.”

Leia gracefully pretends to look the other way while Rey dabs at her eyes and hides the happy tears which swell in them.

* * *

The clock has not yet struck midnight when they hear the beast’s caterwaul.

At first, Rey does not realise what she’s heard. She’s lying in Ben’s embrace, sweaty and sated, and they’re sharing sweet kisses. Ben’s routine has shifted, and with it that of the entire household’s: Rey doesn’t try sleeping before midnight, since Kylo will only wake her anyway. Instead, she and Ben spend the evening entangled with each other in their bed. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they read to each other. More often than not, they explore all the possible ways two human bodies can connect with one another, working through the prospects of a very particular book Ben found in a market in Montreal years before. Due to this, they rise later in the morning, shifting all mealtimes in accordance with their sleeping habits.

The second cry from outside cannot be ignored. It comes from the woods, loud and inhuman, piercing the air and Rey’s blood. She grips Ben tightly, her fingers curling around his arms, and he stills in turn. Listening intently.

When he looks at her, his eyes have shifted, become the colour of hard amber.

“That’s no wolf,” he tells her, his voice gruffer than usual. As he speaks, she thinks even the tips of his teeth are sharper.

“No,” she agrees. “I don’t know what it is.”

He clambers off the bed, but as soon as he’s standing, he turns to tuck her into the blankets. “I should have insisted you keep the rifle up here when I am gone.”

It is still not midnight when he turns into Kylo, his agitation and the creature’s repeated shrieks forcing the shift. Rey is still not used to it, and finds herself shying away from watching, even though Ben assures her it does not hurt him. He falls to his hands and knees, his entire body trembling, his skin rippling and swelling as the larger form takes over from the inside. His limbs lengthen—as do his teeth and nails, turning to fang and claw. His face distorts, his long features stretching, pushed outward by an invisible force. The fur sprouts, and spikes burst from his spine, as Rey hugs her knees to her chest and buries her face to hide herself from the rest of it.

Kylo gives her a rough, warm lick, then pads from the room far more heavily than she is used to.

Once he’s gone, Rey takes heed of Ben’s words. She dresses, not in her nightgown, but in the simplest dress she owns, and swiftly braids her hair to keep it out of her face. Then she goes to wake Han and Leia.

Leia is already upright in bed, staring out of her window. “I heard it, too.”

Han goes to fetch the rifle, and once he’s given it to Rey, he disappears into the attic.

“There’s a beacon to light up there,” Leia explains. “So the villagers know to stay indoors. We don’t want Connie trying to come here in the morning and getting hurt.”

They wait for the dawn in Leia’s room, holding hands. The creature doesn’t make another noise—and Rey is sure that must be a good thing.

“It’s silent, because Kylo found it,” she assures Leia, and Leia strokes her hair.

“I’m sure it’s over by now,” Leia agrees.

But when Rey wakes at dawn—having fallen asleep with her head resting on Leia’s shoulder—neither Ben or Kylo have returned. Leia is keeping her vigil with a grim mouth, and if it weren’t for her, Rey would take the rifle and go into the woods to find her husband.

The cry comes from Han in the attic. “I see him!” he yells, barrelling down the stairs, and Leia waves Rey off so she can follow him. Rifle in hand.

Han throws the back door open, and Rey is unsure what she’s looking at, at first. But then the dark, enormous body of Kylo comes limping through the trees. Blood is dripping from several open wounds, including a deep gash over one eye, and he is one arm is tucked tightly to his body.

Rey takes a step, but Han puts out an arm, pins her inside. “No. He’d be angry if I let you go out there.”

So she has to wait, calling out to him—“Ben!”—as he makes his way across the grounds, to the threshold.

Only then does he fall to his knees, and shift back to the familiar form of her husband. But the wounds remain, including his injured arm, which now hangs limply at his side, bent at an impossible angle.

“It’s a griffin,” he murmurs. “In the woods—it’s a griffin.” He grips at Rey with his good hand, squeezing her fingers tight, until she tears her attention away from the horror of his wounds and meets his dazed stare. Then he passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](https://stellardarlings.tumblr.com/) and 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Your husband is very lucky,” Jannah tells Rey when she opens the door Rey has been pacing outside.
> 
> There are smudges of dark red on the midwife’s indigo robes, and on her hands. Behind her, Ben lies in the marital bed, still unconscious from when he collapsed on the threshold to the house an hour before. His already pale face is blanched to a frightening shade of white, his lips are chapped and pallid, and what can be seen of his skin is littered in sickly yellow bruises and vivid crimson grazes.
> 
> “How so?” Rey asks. She twists her hands together, trying to soothe herself in lieu of being able to touch Ben.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy early chapter day! I had this finished and thought there was no reason to delay posting. Consider it in honour of the Ben Solo Funko Pop release.
> 
> Please note that some new tags have been added. In this chapter specifically there are mentions of blood and injuries, which follows on from what happened at the end of the previous chapter.
> 
> Many thanks, as always, goes to my beta reylonging and our shared id. In particular for her sending me [this gif](https://64.media.tumblr.com/7c3592f2e6e7a949ae4fb8b0f675ca2a/19628569523deb49-cc/s540x810/4899a7a7bd076c8b45ae822fe1b9e364f83c4e08.gif) and saying "what if this, but outside in the snow?"
> 
> And yes, this really is the end of the story. But fear not, I'll be back later in the year with an E-rated follow-up that leans into the monster element, if that's your thing. Subscribe or follow me on social media (links in ending note) for news on this! 
> 
> In the meantime, if you've enjoyed this story and all the magical elements within it, please give my kind-of-Medieval Eros-and-Psyche AU a read. It's called [A Path to Broken Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743546), and it's over 160,000 words already.

“Your husband is very lucky,” Jannah tells Rey when she opens the door Rey has been pacing outside.

There are smudges of dark red on the midwife’s indigo robes, and on her hands. Behind her, Ben lies in the marital bed, still unconscious from when he collapsed on the threshold to the house an hour before. His already pale face is blanched to a frightening shade of white, his lips are chapped and pallid, and what can be seen of his skin is littered in sickly yellow bruises and vivid crimson grazes.

“How so?” Rey asks. She twists her hands together, trying to soothe herself in lieu of being able to touch Ben.

Jannah gives her a compassionate smile. “He’s dislocated his shoulder and broken his arm, but he heals at a much faster rate than you or I would.” She crosses to the washstand, where a bowl of steaming water waits, and begins to scrub at her hands. “I’ve reduced his shoulder—that is, the bone is back in the socket as it should be—and I’ve set the bone with a splint so that it will heal straight. His arm will need to be kept very still until it has healed, which is why I’ve wrapped it in a sling for now.”

“Thank you,” Rey tells her. She still hesitates to cross the threshold into the room, afraid of disturbing Ben in any way while he rests. “Is there anything else I can do for him?”

“Just allow him to rest. Bring him plenty of water and broth, at first, and then meat if he asks for it. I can give you a solution which will ease his pain, but truthfully I fear it will have little effect on him.”

“I’ll take it anyway.”

“Good. There are no claw marks on him that I can see—griffin talons are notoriously toxic, but I suspect he has a natural resistance to it anyway.”

The panic which has been slowly ebbing seizes Rey again. “Are you sure? What if we’ve missed it and—“

Jannah lays a calming hand on Rey’s shoulder. “I assure you, Ben would be in much worse condition than this if he were suffering the ill effects of griffin venom. Come on, let’s leave him to slumber.”

“Yes, Leia would like to see you before you leave.”

“I’m sure she would.”

Leia hadn’t emerged from her own room after Ben returned, the long night and news of his injury taking its toll on her. After Han and Rey had helped get Ben upstairs and into bed, then sending for Jannah, Han had gone to tend to his wife.

He’s lit the fireplace when they enter the room, and Leia looks almost as awful as Ben, though she perks up when she takes in Jannah and Rey’s expressions.

“He’s alright?” she asks, nodding as if to encourage a positive response from them.

“Your son is a strong man,” Jannah tells her, and repeats what she said to Rey about Ben’s injuries.

Leia certainly seems to relax upon hearing the news, taking Jannah’s hand gratefully and covering it with her own. “And what of the village boundaries?”

Han rises from his spot at Leia’s side to cross to the window, where he peers out into the woods. “Ben said that the creature out there is a griffin.”

“In which case, we should be safe during the day,” Jannah says. “Griffin’s aren’t very fond of sunlight—but at night, there’s not much that can best them. I can perform an emergency ritual today to shore up the boundaries, but it will need reinforcing every day until I’m ready to renew them entirely. I can’t do that until the next full moon.”

“Which is when?” asks Han.

“In five days.”

“Do whatever you need to,” Leia commands, squeezing her hand again. “And whatever resources you’ll need, we’ll pay for. In the meantime, I think it best if people stay inside as much as they can, and bring any livestock inside.”

“I’m sure Father Thomas will be delighted to give over the church to Mr Jones’ goats,” Jannah says with a smile.

“People should arm themselves too,” says Han. “A pistol might not kill a griffin in the way it will a wolf, but I doubt it’ll hang around to keep getting shot at either.”

Leia sighs. “I know you’ve always hoped to use one of those grenades one day, but I really don’t think now is the time to be experimenting on whether you can blow up a griffin.”

Han’s expression of feigned innocence is unconvincing. “What grenades?”

“I don’t like how much damage a griffin was able to do to Kylo,” Rey says, trying to direct the conversation back towards something crucial, rather than it dissolving into bickering. “He’s enormous—surely nothing should have been able to harm him. And yet…”

Leia shakes her head. “You’ve never seen a griffin, have you? There’s a reason they were hunted so ruthlessly until they were contained in the wilds of Scotland.”

“It can’t be bigger than Kylo, though?”

“Some are.”

Rey sucks in a breath. It’s hard to imagine anything being larger than Kylo, and the idea of something like that being out in the woods, prowling around the village hoping to find food…

With everything as settled as it can be for now, Rey and Han retreat from Leia’s room with Jannah, to allow Leia to rest as well. Han offers Jannah the tea she should have been offered as a guest, if it weren’t for the emergency which brought her here, and she declines it.

“I have too much to do today,” she replies. “And in the coming days, too.”

Han disappears into the kitchen to make Leia some tea anyway, leaving Rey to see the midwife out. When they reach the door and Jannah has donned her impressive cloak, she turns to Rey and lowers her voice.

“I didn’t want to mention such a delicate issue in front of Mr and Mrs Solo, as I didn’t believe it appropriate for their ears. However, it would be remiss of me not to tell you there are ways of strengthening, even broadening, the boundaries so that a griffin would have no chance of even entering the valley.”

“I don’t understand—why tell me alone?”

Jannah glances around, to make sure they are truly alone in the hallway. “These are older rituals, so old they aren’t even sanctioned by the church. They involve…acts that the church tends to find distasteful, or at least prefer not to discuss. Acts normally confined to the marital bed.”

“You mean—“ Rey feels her cheeks heating up. “You mean what Ben and I do together?” Her voice almost falters by the end of the question, and it doesn’t help that they are stood so close to the door into the library. If the church believes such acts are supposed to be done in the marital bed alone, then she and Ben have flouted the rules from the very beginning.

“Yes. The rituals are not complicated, but they do require two people who are bound to this land by blood or marriage and who have a little magic in their veins to perform them together. It’s been a long time since anybody in this lineage has fit the criteria.”

“I could—I could raise the idea with Ben. When he is feeling better.”

Jannah nods. “If you would both be amenable towards the idea, I’ll provide more information then.”

When Jannah has left, Rey finds herself unsure of what to do next. Normally she spends her days with Ben, or in the sitting room with the entire family. But the house is still and quiet, beyond the rattle and hum of the stove in the kitchen. Rey retreats into the library, closing the door behind her in case Han comes searching for her. 

She’s seeking particular knowledge, but as soon as she steps inside she’s overwhelmed with memories of the time she’s spent in this room. She’s been in this house for less than a month, but already has more pleasant, happy memories than the entirety of her nineteen years before she arrived. Not just when she’d permitted Ben to defile her on the ladder—the sight of it causing her body to react, despite Ben lying injured upstairs—but the hours they’d spent in this room quietly reading together. Although, as soon as she thinks of those peaceful hours—side by side on the sofa, pressed hip to hip, while Ben’s free hand idly played with her braided hair—she notices a discarded stocking hidden underneath the desk. No doubt missed by her when she redressed herself after Ben decided to test the sturdiness of the desk.

Trying to ignore the onslaught of memories and emotion, she crosses to the section she’s looking for, retrieving a slim volume with gilded lettering on the side—the family bestiary. Then she settles into the armchair with it on her lap, flipping through the pages until she finds the entry for griffins.

The illustration is certainly eye-catching, a ferocious melange of feather and claw, although she thinks it no more intimidating than Kylo. 

Part bird-of-prey, the text reads, part lion, and part demon…

Exceptionally difficult to kill. Either the heart or brain needs destroying, and getting to a griffin’s heart through its ribcage without being savaged by its talons is all but impossible. As for the brain—some lucky warriors had driven swords through a griffin’s eyes, but that still brought them within slashing distance of beak and talons. 

None of it is as comforting as she’d hoped. She reshelves the book, and then makes her quiet way upstairs, hesitating in the hallway outside of Ben’s bedroom. She doesn’t want to disturb him, exhausted as she finds herself, so she carries on past the door, to her old bedroom instead. Inside, she washes and changes into an old nightgown she left behind in the armoire, and settles into the bed.

* * *

Rey is quite sure at least an hour has passed, and sleep eludes her. The bed is too cold, too empty, to allow her to sleep, no matter how much she needs it after the previous night’s vigil. However, lack of sleep turns out to be a good thing, or she might have missed Ben’s plaintive calling out for her.

She doesn’t quite hear it at first, thinking she’s imagining his voice, as this is the longest she’s gone without hearing it since their marriage. But then he cries out again—her name—and she pushes herself out of bed, sleep forgotten, wrapping a shawl around herself to pad back down the corridor to where he’s resting.

He’s awake when she peeks inside, and he reaches out for her with his good hand when he sees her. She crosses to take it, though very gingerly, and perches herself on the edge of the bed, not too close to him.

“You gave us all quite the shock,” she tells him, brushing his hair from his forehead with her free hand. 

He tries to tug her closer. “When I woke up and you weren’t here—I was worried something had happened to you.” His voice is groggy and hoarse, and it reminds her that he needs to drink something.

“I’m perfectly fine, as you can see. How are you feeling?”

“As though I lost a fight with a griffin. I’m quite sure there isn’t any part of me that isn’t bruised, and Kylo is sulking. It’s very annoying.”

She smiles, bending her head to kiss the fingers entwined with hers. “I can bring you some food?”

“That would be wonderful. And could you read to me, after?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Leaving the room to go fetch him food is harder than it ought to be, because Ben is unwilling to let go of her hand, but she manages to extricate herself. Once in the kitchen, she makes tea for everyone, rustles up some scones with cream from the pantry for Leia, then heats up a bowl of broth for Ben, and carries it all upstairs on a tray. She delivers to Leia first—Han is presumably downstairs, doing whatever it is that Han does during the day—then returns to Ben.

He lifts his head from the pillows and smiles at her as she comes through the door laden with the tray. She places it on the dresser while she helps him sit up in bed without putting stress on his injured arm, plumping the cushions to ensure he has plenty of support while he leans back against the headboard. 

“You managed with the stove?” he asks when she places the food in front of him. “I’ve never been able to work that thing out.”

She settles back onto the bed beside him, and retrieves the book he’s been reading from the night-stand. “I do know my way around a kitchen, you know. They tried to put me into service.”

“Who?” he demands. And then, “Tried to?”

Rey blushes. “I’m afraid I wasn’t much good at it. All the girls in the orphanage were expected to be placed into service in the city, but I don’t take orders well.”

“Mmm. I’ve noticed. I find it rather delightful.”

“Well, it’s why they sent me to work with creatures instead. They thought it would show me how much worse things could be than being a housemaid—but it turns out I rather enjoyed it.”

Unkar Plutt had been furious when her first mistress complained about Rey’s conduct as a housemaid, but not half as furious as when Rey had refused to steal trinkets for him to sell. Rey had pointed out how obvious it would be that she was the thief—but then Plutt wasn’t the one who’d hang for it if caught. He’d been similarly frustrated about Rey’s lack of prowess as a fingersmith. Not that she has any intention of relaying this to her husband, for she hardly thinks a threadbare display of morals is something to brag about.

Ben has been feeding himself spoonfuls of broth as they spoke, but now she notices the faint tremor running through the hand he’s using to grip the spoon. Without commenting, she reaches out to take the spoon from him, dipping it back into the broth and carefully lifting it to his mouth.

Feeding him broth is perhaps not as delicate as when he’d fed her cake on their wedding day, but it’s also more intimate, even if they’re no longer physically bound together. He keeps his eyes on her all the way through, his gaze soft and adoring in a way which makes it difficult for her to return, and she finds herself growing flustered.

“I was so worried last night,” she tells him. “And then this morning, when you didn’t come home—“ She’s astonished, twice over: first by the tears pricking at her eyes, and second at her casual claiming of the house as her home. Their home. “Especially when I was the one who insisted Kylo go out there and face whatever it was, when we didn’t know—“

“Shhh,” he urges her, taking her free hand again and lifting it to his face so he can kiss the back of it, then press it to his cheek. “You were right to insist.”

“But I could have lost you,” she whimpers, and the tears are hot on her cheeks, on her lips. “I’ve only just found you. You’ve given me a home and a family, and the thought of losing you is unbearable.”

He tugs at her until she’s close enough for him to wipe the tears away, regarding her with more concern than she thinks she can ever remember another person showing her. 

“Rey, my darling,” he murmurs. “If you think there is anything in this world that could prevent me from returning to you, then you do not know me at all.”

“I have read up on griffins,” she tells him with a small hiccough. “And I’m not sure that your libido alone can defeat one.”

“What about my heart?” 

She glances up at him, startled. Anticipation shivers through her, even though she barely dares to hope. “Ben?”

“I know we haven’t known each other for very long, but it’s true. I love you.”

“Oh.” The tears well up again, and she’s at a loss for what to do with herself. She opens her mouth, but cannot find the words for the tumult of emotions rolling through her.

“It’s alright.” He cups her face in his hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “You don’t have to say anything in return. How I feel is not conditional or in need of being reciprocated—it merely is.”

She nods, leaning into his touch, and they sit like that for a while, until the pain drags Ben into sleep once more.

* * *

Even such a calamity cannot keep Kylo at bay, and Ben’s body shifts into the beast’s at the stroke of midnight. However, it’s clear that his arm remains injured no matter what form he takes, and Rey orders him to stay where he is and rest.

“You cannot fight a griffin in this condition,” she tells him, when he whines and noses at her legs. “Jannah has taken care of the boundaries, so you must behave yourself until you’re fully healed. Or do I need to sit guarding the threshold with a rifle full of tranquillising solution?”

To appease him, Rey does at least let him onto the bed, whereby he proceeds to take up most of the space, and she tucks herself up alongside his body in what little room there is left. He seems to like this compromise, and it does mean that in the morning Ben does not wake up on the floor.

Ben’s injuries have much improved by the morning, although Rey still trusses his arm up again, since the break has clearly not fully healed yet. She sits with him for most of the day, reading from the book he’d asked her to, and then running errands when he dozes. There is much to be done while Connie cannot come to the house—not just lighting fires and making tea, but cooking the meals and ensuring Leia takes her medication. Han is surprisingly helpful, washing the dishes after they’ve eaten and sweeping the floors.

“I wasn’t born in a big house, either,” he tells her, intuiting her surprise. 

There’s a meat pie in the cold-store which Rey heats in the oven and cuts into bite-size pieces before taking it up to Ben for his lunch. She places the tray on his lap, but he pulls her into his side and wraps his uninjured arm around her waist.

“Oh dear,” he says, “it appears I have no free hands to feed myself with.”

“Is that so?”

She picks a piece of pie from the plate, held between her thumb and forefinger, and lifts it to her own mouth. However, before she can put it in her mouth, large lips have wrapped around the morsel, plucking it from her grasp. And then to add insult to injury, Ben’s tongue flicks out to lick at her fingers.

“Ben!” she admonishes. “What a beastly thing to do.”

“You love it, dear wife,” he says as he chews, gazing up at her from beneath impossibly long eyelashes. Her breath catches in her chest at the sight—he looks quite young at this angle, and carefree, his lips curved lightly upward in a teasing grin.

“Yes,” she replies breathlessly. “I suppose I do.”

His eyes become questioning, but she only lifts another piece of pie to his mouth instead, letting him kiss the pads of her fingertips all he wants. But when the pie is gone, and the plate is clean, he presses his lips into her temple and hums his content against her skin.

“Don’t think I missed your confession,” he says. “Don’t think it doesn’t mean the world to me.”

Of course, he wouldn’t be Ben if he didn’t try to initiate a more physical expression of their emotions, but Rey wriggles out of his grasp before things progress further than a clumsy kiss.

“You are still injured,” she tells him sternly. “You’ll behave yourself until Jannah has confirmed you are fully healed.”

The woman in question visits on the fourth day—the afternoon before the full moon.

“The bone has knitted together quite well,” she tells both of them, after much prodding and poking, and receiving an equal amount of inappropriate words from Ben as she did so. “And you have your range of motion back, which doesn’t suggest there’ll be lasting injury. However, your arm is still weak and I fear putting any stress on it at this point could fracture the bone again.”

“Which means?” asks Ben, and Rey surreptitiously smacks his thigh for his rudeness. 

Luckily, Jannah doesn’t seem perturbed by him being curt with her. “You don’t need to wear the splint or sling any longer, but you do need to continue to rest.”

“No hunting?” Rey checks.

“No hunting,” Jannah confirms. 

“How is everybody in the village?” Rey asks. “Have there been any further incidents?”

“None, and no sightings, though everybody is keeping out of the woods.” Jannah snaps the fastenings on her carpet bag shut. “The boundaries appear to be holding for now, though more snow is expected and I fear the griffin might become hungry enough to test us again.”

“Will you be safe?” Ben asks.

Jannah pats her hip, where her own gun is holstered. “I have enough to scare away a griffin in daylight, though I intend to be home long before night falls.”

Rey wonders if Jannah will bring up what they discussed on her last visit, and isn’t sure how to respond. But it seems that the midwife does not consider Ben fit for such activities yet, and departs without a word of it.

A few hours later, just as the sun disappears behind the trees, snow begins falling again. It comes down thick and fast, soon covering the ground in a white carpet and clinging to the tree branches. Rey much prefers to be inside with a roaring hearth watching it fall this time, enjoying the way the sky fails to truly darken when the clouds are fat and heavy with their burden.

Until the church bells begin tolling.

Rey has yet to hear the bells since she moved to the village, and the deep, resonant note startles her when it first sounds. She’s grown unused to hearing bells outside of the city, and this is not the hourly toll, or the call to service—this is one singular note, repeated every couple of seconds. A mournful warning.

Han comes rushing into the room. “Something must have happened in the village.”

Ben’s fingers tighten around Rey’s.

“Is there any way to find out what?” he asks his father.

“I can try signalling them from the attic. I learned a code while I was a sailor which I taught to a few of the guys in The White Hart.” 

And so Han departs upstairs, while Ben becomes increasingly restless. For the first time he gets out of bed to do more than use the bathroom, pacing the floor while Rey tries to urge him back into bed.

“You heard what Jannah said earlier—you still need to rest.”

“I have rested plenty over the last few days. I can hardly be expected to sit idly by while the villagers are in danger!”

It only gets worse when Han reappears. “The griffin was sighted at the edge of the village. It tried taking a child from one of the outlying cottages.”

“What?”

Han shrugs. “I don’t know more than that, only that the child is safe and the griffin was chased off into the woods. But I don’t think it’ll be kept away for long.”

“No,” Ben agrees. “If it was desperate enough to approach a house, it’s desperate enough to do it again.”

“Surely Jannah knows,” Rey says. “She can try another piece of spellwork. And the preacher certainly does, or the bells would not be tolling! They can work together to keep the beast at bay.”

But Ben shakes his head and strides from the room. Both Rey and Han trail after him.

“Where are you going?” she demands.

“To find the griffin and defeat it,” Ben replies, taking the stairs two at a time.

Rey hurries to keep up. “You can’t!”

“I must,” he says, and sets his mouth in a grim line. He’s reached the downstairs hallway and hurries towards the rear door.

“You are still injured—“

As if to prove a point, he holds out his arm, the one he’d cradled to himself when he returned from his first fight with the griffin, twisting it to show the range of movement he has with it. Yet Rey doesn’t miss the flicker of pain, the hesitation, as he does so. 

“I’ll get the gun,” Han says.

“Yes, do,” Rey agrees. “So that I can come out and hunt the griffin with Kylo.”

“Absolutely not!” Ben shouts—the first time she’s ever heard him raise his voice. And it’s not entirely his voice—there’s a rasp to it, a bass note which hints at Kylo already snapping at the reins of control. She must have flinched, because when he continues, he’s contrite—but no less resolute. “This is no place for you, Rey. I need to know that you are here, and you are safe. Father—“

He raises his gaze to Han, who nods in return. “I’ll watch over them both.”

“I’m not some precious little flower who needs shielding from the world,” Rey protests. “But if you feel that way, perhaps Kylo should stay here and guard me after all. That was his first impulse, wasn’t it?”

Ben turns his back on her coldly, reaching for the door. “Killing the griffin will be better protection than hiding away and hoping it passes us by.”

The world is a wall of white outside, and the cold bites at Rey’s skin as Ben steps out into the snow. She tries to follow him, but Han takes her upper arm—not tightly, not enough to prevent her if she really fought against him. But she knows she’s not dressed for the weather, even if the snow has stopped falling, and to follow Ben out into that would only put her at risk in other ways.

“Ben!” she cries out, but his body is already blurring, stretching, growing into Kylo’s larger shape. He does turn to look at her, amber eyes unblinking and resolute. His stare stretches on and it feels like he’s trying to say something—but then he shakes his head, turning and loping off into the woods.

He’s still limping. 

Rey slams the door shut, rushing back inside and up to her room to get changed. She finds her old clothes, the ones she came to the village in—practical, warm items appropriate for hunting in the woods with, not the lovely garments of velvet and lace she wears nowadays. She puts on her sturdiest pair of boots, and her thickest cloak, and gloves, and barrels down the stairs. But when she reaches the cellar door to Han’s weapons, it’s been locked.

“Looking for this?” Han leans against the wall with the rifle in his hands. “Sorry kid. You know I can’t give it you—Ben’d never forgive me.”

“He can only sulk about it if he can come home to us.”

“Have a little faith in him.” He’s trying to smile, but the uncertainty is clear in the lines of his face. Rey wants to be angry at him, but it’s his son in danger—he must be as heartsick as she is. It’s Ben she’s frustrated with.

And so without any weapon to protect herself with—and Rey is not so foolish as to rush out into the woods without one at all—she is left to maintain a vigil with Han and Leia again.

This time, they decamp to the sitting room, where Rey stokes the fire and finds herself pacing. This is worse than when he lay injured in their bed and she didn’t know how serious his wounds were. How can she sit, knowing he’s out there risking his life? Knowing he’s already fought the griffin once and found himself bested—and know he intends to face it again while still injured?

He’s going to die out there, in the woods, in the snow, and her fragile little family will shatter around her.

Leia tries to embroider by the firelight, but sometime in the small hours of the morning she falls asleep. Which only leaves Han, who sits in his usual armchair with the rifle balanced over his knees. It has real bullets in it this time—Rey’s asked.

“Come on, kid. Sit down. Rest. Wearing a hole in the carpet isn’t going to bring him back any sooner.”

“I can’t,” she tells him, immediately. Before a plan forms a second later. “Except—I suppose tea might help. I’ll go—“

“No, I’ll go,” Han offers, and he disappears into the kitchen. He takes the rifle with him, of course—he’s not so sloppy—but Rey follows him, peering into the kitchen through a crack in the doorframe. He places the gun on one of the benches and turns his back while he tends to the stove. She waits until the kettle begins to boil, its high whistling covering up her quiet footfalls, before creeping in and silently swiping the rifle from behind him.

He hasn’t even noticed before she’s out in the night.

Kylo’s footprints are still visible, a clear path for her to follow. She wraps the cloak tighter around herself, glad for the bright glow of the full moon and the snow’s answering reflection. The night is not so dark as it might have been otherwise, and the bare boughs of the midwinter trees means that even as she makes her way into the woods, the light doesn’t diminish. The snow is soft and powdery enough that her footsteps are swallowed, rather than crunching, and there’s an eerie stillness around her. She knows that everything out here is hiding, keeping itself as quiet and small as possible, to avoid the attention of the two great beasts which hunt.

Everything except her.

Her one solace is that she doesn’t believe the griffin can creep up on her out here. Not with everything so bright and open. Not with her senses on as high alert as they are. But she moves cautiously anyway, searching for Kylo. Sure that he will attract the griffin’s attention over everything else.

She’s right. It’s shocking, how fast it takes for her to find him. He’s in a clearing, his glossy fur gleaming under the moon, sniffing around the trees. His tracks show that he’s been elsewhere but keeps returning to this spot. The griffin’s scent must be strong here—is this where it’s hidden during the day?

If he’s having no luck finding the griffin, he notices her immediately, head whipping up and nostrils flaring with her scent. He gives a short yelp when his stare falls on her, tail lashing at the ground—a warning to her. He’s angry.

And behind him, a shadow rises from the trees. Larger than Kylo by a third again.

“Look out!” she yells, and Kylo jerks around, tail spikes catching the griffin between the eyes. It’s stunned, letting out one of those bloodcurdling screeches, but only for a second—enough time for Kylo to leap out of the way.

He puts his back to Rey, to the place where she remains sheltered between the trees, and Rey realizes the mistake. His attention is going to be split, trying to protect her while fighting the griffin.

The griffin tips its head back and bellows, loud enough to shake the snow from the upper boughs. Rey raises the rifle to her shoulder and takes her first shot. 

It goes wide, but she never expected to hit the griffin anyway. She only wanted to scare it off, to send it running back into the darkness so she can persuade Kylo to come home. Dawn is a pink smudge in the east, and she fears that when it arrives Ben will reclaim his body, leaving them both defenceless. 

Instead, the sound of the bullet, sharp and loud, only annoys the griffin. It puts its head down, and it charges at Kylo.

Kylo’s tail protects him again, and he slams the spiked ends into the other beast’s throat, knocking it off its feet. But the griffin is quick to get back up—and unlike a normal bird, it has the advantage of giant cat’s paws at the back, with claws as large as Kylo’s, but talons at the front as long as Rey’s forearm. If those come anywhere near Kylo, it’s over. 

Kylo leaps onto the griffin’s back, the only move he can make to avoid the slashing range of the talons and the bite of its beak. He sinks his teeth into its neck, digging in, but the griffin bucks and writhes, trying to dislodge him. Kylo clings on with his claws, except for the one place he can’t—with his weak arm. And the griffin notices, sinking to its knees, ready to roll over and crush Kylo on that side. 

Rey takes a deep breath, staring down the barrel of the rifle. Pushing all her panic out with that breath, looking beyond the gun and at the griffin’s face, at the spot right above its beak.

She pulls the trigger.

Its head blooms in red, and it drops into the snow face first.

With its collapse, Kylo falls too, almost barrelled straight over its head, but he clings on tight. Then, for good measure, he reaches underneath the griffin’s throat with one set of claws and tears it out. The white surrounding them is painted in crimson, the air perfumed with the scent of copper. Kylo climbs down, shoving the griffin’s body over with the full force of his weight, and his claws disappear into its belly too.

Rey turns her back and walks away, having no desire to watch the rest of Kylo’s victory. High above, the sky is blossoming into a blanket of lavender blue, though the moon is still a full, ghostly sphere despite the sun’s encroaching presence.

She hasn’t gone far when she feels his presence following her.

“Rey!”

She’s shocked to hear his human voice—she expected to return to the house trailed by Kylo, despite the dawn. But when she turns to face him, it is Ben standing there. Pale and bloodied, his dark hair a wild tangle, his lips ruby red—though not from blood—like he’s been lifted directly from a fairy tale. He’s lovely to her, even like this, naked and panting and surrounded by the wilderness like he’s never belonged to the human world at all. 

She shouldn’t want him, not until they’re safely home and warm, but she does, his long, lithe form stirring desire in her. It pulses between her legs, clenching low in her belly. She never felt like she belonged to the human world either. Ben is the only person who’s ever truly wanted her, and the promise of that lies between them, as it always does.

He’s angry, his dark eyes narrow and intense.

“What were you doing out here?” he yells, mouth twisting into fury.

“Saving your life,” she replies. It’s a taunt, and she’s not sure why she’s taunting him—it seems foolish at a time like this. Who knows what else might be lurking out here in the woods? How much would it take to push him back into Kylo’s body instead of his own? Then she wouldn’t get what she wants from him at all.

But he strides forward, taking her by the arms so she can’t walk away from him any further. “And what good would that have done if you’d have been hurt? Or killed?”

And then she sees what lies beneath the anger—fear. The same fear she’d carried within her breast all night. She can’t look away from him, can’t free herself of his fierce stare.

She kisses him instead.

If it’s not what he wanted, he shows no hesitation, one arm wrapping around her waist to pin her to his torso. She’s on tiptoe to reach his mouth, but she’s crushed to him so tightly that he’s the one holding her in place, devouring her mouth. He’s hot, hotter than he usually feels despite the freezing temperature of the woods, and the blood painted on his skin must be soaking into her dress.

He lifts her, easily, and takes a few steps to back her into the nearest tree. Somewhere along the way she drops the rifle. Her sturdy cloak protects her from the roughness of the bark, and Ben hoists her high enough that she has to wrap both legs around his waist, because her toes no longer reach the ground at all. Her skirt is trapped between their hips, but Ben has another target for now, his hands wrenching at the top of her bodice.

“Don’t you dare rip it!” she orders him, but she’s not sure if he hears her or even cares, his expression is so glazed, his intent so focussed. He manages to free her breasts without ripping anything—she’d not come out here in her stays, which makes things easier—but it’s ruined anyway, drenched in blood. With his mouth unoccupied, he finds a new way of using it.

The scratch and scrape of the day’s new whiskers are a stark contrast to the heat and softness of his mouth, the glide of his tongue, the light suction. “You always taste so good,” he mutters against her skin. “Especially here.”

Rey digs one set of fingers into his hair, pressing his mouth against her, and tries to hitch her skirt up with the other, so she can move her hips against his. She needs friction, or she’s afraid she’ll be set alight by desire alone. She knows that what they’re doing is indecent, obscene, even if they are married, but she’s not sure there’s anything in the world which could compel her to stop.

Ben seems to realise that getting her skirt out of the way is of benefit to him too, and he yanks it up so that it ends up gathered around her waist. The air is startlingly cold against her bare skin, but like his mouth before, he finds ways of keeping her warm. This time, his fingers delve between her thighs, testing her desire. He’s always eager, but usually less hurried about preparing her—however, this time he pushes into her with two fingers at once, and she cries out, constricting around him. He must, correctly, take the sound as keenness, because in the next moment he thrusts into her with something much thicker than fingers.

This time Ben swallows her cry with his lips, and he gives her no quarter, no time to gather herself before he begins driving into her. The pressure is familiar to her by now, the way he fills her almost to the point of pain. His stamina has greatly improved since that first time in the library, and evidently his reticence has been discarded too, his hips heavy and insistent against hers. But she has no complaint—none at all.

He rests his forehead against hers, the anger in his eyes long discarded in favour of the awe and hunger in them now. One hand comes to lie against her throat, finger and thumb resting on her jaw—not holding her tightly, but keeping her in place nonetheless. She feels like she can’t even blink away from this moment; she must return his stare, drink in his breath, and let the deep note of pleasure build inside her with his every thrust.

“Are you going to finish like this?” he demands of her. “Are you going to tighten up and wring every drop out of me?”

She’s so shocked by his words—by how blunt he is being—that she can’t voice a reply of her own, only shake her head. No. It’s not enough, even like this, even though the entire world has narrowed to the way he’s moving inside her.

He nods, untangling her hand from his hair and guiding it with his own to place their fingers between them. “What do you need, then?”

“Please—”

He knows what she needs; they’ve done this often enough that he knows exactly how to make her feel good, but he keeps their fingers perfectly still. Pressure without friction, and though she squirms she can’t get the placement exactly right.

“Please?” he repeats. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was taunting her. “Do you need me—here?”

She nods her head eagerly. “Yes—yes. I do. I need you.”

Satisfied, he strokes between them, his thick forefinger rubbing right next to hers. That’s all it takes, and he knows it, his eyes lighting up with an amber gleam just before she has to squeeze hers shut. It’s like she’s molten, golden, bucking against him while she surrenders to the pleasure.

“Good girl,” he purrs in her ear, and there’s a low, guttural edge to his voice she’s never heard before. She’s never heard any of this before, never heard him give free rein to voicing his desires—to hers—but she never wants him to stop. “And where should I finish?”

She knows sometimes he likes to paint her skin in his spend, but she couldn’t bear him pulling away for a second. “Inside,” she pants, drawing him in tighter with her legs.

“Perfect,” he murmurs. He follows her moments later, with the hardest thrusts yet, then buries his face in her neck, his savage grunts echoing around them. He likes to press his mouth to her skin while he finishes, she’s learned—perhaps her scent is very strong there. When he lifts his head, his eyes are their familiar rich brown, and she wonders if she imagined that earlier gleam.

“What—” he says, withdrawing from her, though she clings to his delicious heat “—were you  _ thinking? _ ”

It takes longer than it ought to for her to remember their previous disagreement. “I wanted to ensure my husband made it home to me,” she tells him tartly.

He shifts away, untangling their bodies so her feet touch the ground again, her skirt falling to cover her up, though his hands do not leave her. “You mustn’t ever do anything like this again. I mean it, Rey!”

“I recall you saying you like that I’m bad at following orders.” She tugs her bodices upwards, tucking herself away.

“Do I need to chain you up to keep you safe?” he demands. “If you insist on behaving badly, I’ll have to find some way to ensure you’re safe.”

“I thought I was your good girl,” she tells him, and she’s satisfied at the way his nostrils flare, the light of desire sparking in him once more.

“Not right now, you aren’t.” But then his frown changes, his disgruntlement taking on a light of concern. “You’re shivering.”

“As  _ you  _ should be.”

He shakes his head, and his hair has not become any neater for their encounter. “We should go home. We can discuss this when you are warm and safe.”

She hands him her cloak, for propriety more than warmth, and retrieves the rifle from the snow.

She’s amazed that she makes it back to the house for how shaky her legs are, and with every step she only becomes more concerned with keeping her thighs pressed together as she walks. Between them lies a sticky mess—one she asked for—and if her cheeks are flushed crimson, it’s not only a reaction to the cold. No well-bred wife would have found herself in this situation.

Han and Leia are waiting for them on the threshold of the house when they emerge from the woods, and Leia’s hands cover her mouth when she sees the state of Rey’s dress, which is bloody and snarled from its encounter with the tree trunk.

“Don’t be alarmed!” Rey tells them. “The blood does not belong to either of us.”

“The griffin’s dead,” Ben announces as Leia comes rushing out, throwing her arms around his waist. “Mother, I’m not dressed—“

“Oh, hush. If I see anything I haven’t seen before, I’ll shoot it,” Leia tells him. “Let me be proud and happy.”

Ben is rather stern with his father when Rey hands a sheepish Han his rifle back— “What happened to keeping her safe?” but Rey shushes him and ushers him upstairs so he can wear something more appropriate than her cloak.

They’re both so filthy, they leave the remnants of Rey’s clothes on the bathroom floor and scrub each other clean. Ben avoids running the washcloth between her legs, and Rey has to retrieve another to do it herself.

“Must you?” he grumbles. “You smell so good right now.”

“I must. We’ll have guests coming soon,” she reminds him.

And so it is. Han sends a signal out to the village to let them know the danger has passed, and by the time Rey and Ben return downstairs—fully clothed and not coated in blood, as appropriate—Jannah has arrived.

“I told you my guns would come in handy,” Han mutters to Leia when Ben explains how the griffin was killed. Leia huffs, but her glare is tempered with a note of affection. “Now just imagine what one of the grenades could’ve done!”

Rey busies herself with fetching drinks, finding she doesn’t enjoy the scrutiny. Leia demands whiskey rather than tea, and when Rey is alone in the kitchen Jannah wanders in to have a quiet word.

“I tested the boundaries again on my way here,” she says. “They’re stronger than I expected them to be.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Rey replies. “It stops anything else following in the griffin’s wake.”

“Yes, I suppose it is. Although it leaves me with questions about how it happened, outside of the kind of ritual magic I mentioned to you. Because those rituals are powerful—yet not without their consequences.”

Rey can’t meet the midwife’s direct gaze, not when she still aches where Ben has touched her. Jannah sighs and pours herself a hearty measure of Han’s oldest double malt.

“I understand you don’t want to talk to me about such a private matter,” she continues, taking a swig and grimacing at the burn. “But if you notice anything unusual, please come to me. I won’t judge you for whatever you have to tell me.”

Later, they toast to health and safety around a roaring hearth, the drapes thrown open to let in the brightness of the new day. Leia even opens one of the sashes to let the fresh air circulate through the room, curling up on the window seat to admire the peaceful outside world.

“Listen!” Leia says. “Do you hear that?”

The church bells ring once more, but this time they ring with joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](https://stellardarlings.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/stellardarlings) for teasers, moodboards, and all that jazz.


End file.
